Two Meta-owned studios have announced that they will be moving on from existing projects to work on something bigger and better. They’re not the first studio to do something like this recently, and certainly won’t be the last.
Downpour Interactive, developer of Onward, has joined other developers in announcing that it will end support for the original Oculus Quest. (opens in new tab) Ditching Meta’s first generation Quest headset. But that wasn’t the biggest surprise of the day.Rather, that award belongs to the abrupt end of support for Echo VR (opens in new tab) As of January 31st.
Echo VR is one of our favorite Quest 2 games. (opens in new tab) This is one of the most unique bespoke experiences in VR. Nothing beats the feeling of playing sports in zero gravity, and no other game on the market can replicate this feeling.
Echo VR was largely a single-player driven PCVR game, but a spin-off from the Lone Echo series of games that were hugely successful on the multiplayer side. Developer Ready at Dawn — the developer behind The Order: 1886, God of War: Ghost of Sparta and more — was acquired by Meta in June 2020. Echo VR has been free-to-play and profitable since its release. Through season passes and cosmetics.
Like other studios, Ready at Dawn are working on their next big project.
So what does that mean? Meta’s first-party studios are all starting to focus on the upcoming fall release of Meta Quest 3 (opens in new tab)Meta currently owns nearly a dozen different developers. (opens in new tab) Indeed, we are working on updating existing games as well as new ones.
Ready at Dawn’s announcement does just that, allowing players to spend as much time in zero gravity VR as a human being can until August 1st before the studio completely unplugs the game. reason? “The studio [is] We are gathering to focus on our next project. “
What’s next for your company? Many wanted a quest port for the Lone Echo and Lone Echo II. (opens in new tab)and that may indeed be the case—as I said, Quest has a distinct lack of zero-gravity games—the studio decided to build a completely original for the foundation of Quest 2. I think it’s working and Quest 3 hardware.
Likewise, we’re still expecting some big announcements from Meta over the next few months as we get closer to Quest 3’s official reveal and subsequent launch. has not been mentioned since announcing its existence on . (opens in new tab)patiently waiting for Assassin’s Creed VR to reveal its beautiful face.
We’re also pretty sure Roblox is headed for Quest (opens in new tab) Although the company’s latest teaser doesn’t tell us much.
Expect to see some big announcements from Meta over the next few months as we get closer to the Quest 3’s official reveal and subsequent launch.
But these are third-party partnerships Meta has made with other studios, what about Meta’s own studio?
Armature Studio, which was behind the excellent Resident Evil 4 VR remake, is almost certainly working on a similar project to bring its famous IP to Quest. We don’t expect Beat Games to drop Beat Saber 2, but the studio has been pretty quiet in recent years, seemingly focused solely on revealing Beat Saber DLC packs and not much else.
BigBox VR has ended Quest 1 support for Population: One. I know the company is working on some huge new updates after the recent sandbox addition. These are all built for Quest 2 (and 3 as well) hardware.
Iron Man VR developer Camouflaj is rumored to bring the company’s expertise in good superhero games to another round by giving players a VR treatment of Batman. Zuckerberg recently leaked that Onward 2 is in development, so it covers Downpour Interactive’s future plans.
Meta has nearly 10 first-party studios working on Quest’s own VR games.
We have not heard from Sanzaru Games since Meta acquired the studio in early 2020. While we want an incredibly genre-bending Quest port of Asgard’s Wrath, it’s entirely possible that the studio is working on another original groundbreaking VR. title instead.
Twisted Pixel is known to put out basically anything the team wants to make, and it spans so many different genres over the years that it’s hard to tell what they’re up to.
And Unit 2 (the developers behind Crayta) is almost certainly used to improve the poor Horizon Worlds metaverse.
If Meta can finish selling Within, there’s a good chance another fitness-focused game will come out of the studio, but that doesn’t seem likely this year.
Either way, with Quest 3 on the horizon, Meta isn’t dropping support for Quest 2 anytime soon. All indicate that the company has sold over 20 million headsets to date, more than Microsoft’s latest Xbox console.
The most popular VR headset is still the best VR headset you can buy. Play exclusive games and be part of Quest 2’s incredible social experience.
