Ready at Dawn Studio Shut Down by Meta
If you’re a longtime PlayStation gamer, chances are Ready at Dawn will be a familiar name, as the studio struck gold with PlayStation hits such as God of War: Chains of Olympus, Ghost of Sparta, and to a lesser extent, The Order: 1886. Sadly, we come bearing bad news, as Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Oculus, is shutting the studio down.
According to the report, the studio closure is effective immediately, and Meta says that Ready at Dawn (RAD) employees are encouraged to apply to other studios within the Oculus Studios umbrella. Apparently, RAD was closed to meet the new Reality Labs budgetary ceiling, which was prefaced by a report that surfaced in mid-July that said Meta was cutting its Reality Labs division’s budget by 20% by 2026. In a statement to Android Central, a Meta spokersperson said that closure isn’t exactly being made to “save money” per se, but rather, to ensure that Reality Labs stay within the new budgetary constraints, and that Oculus Studios can make a “better long-term impact” in VR development.
Ready at Dawn was acquired by Oculus Studios back in 2020, as the studio has been quite active in the VR (Virtual Reality) genre developing games such as Lone Echo, Lone Echo 2, Echo VR. For hardcore gamers, Ready at Dawn is most known for its work on PlayStation Portable hits like God of War: Chains of Olympus, God of War: Ghost of Sparta, and more. In terms of home console releases, Ready at Dawn was at the forefront of pushing the PS4’s tech when they released The Order: 1886, which wasn’t as well received as Sony would have liked. After that game, the studio released multiplayer game Deformers that failed to snag its own player base, and its servers were shutdown just a year later in 2018.
As someone who really liked The Order: 1886 and some of the other projects by Ready at Dawn, this is very sad news to hear. We here at MP1st hope the employees affected land on their feet ASAP.
Ready at Dawn’s studio closure is one of the many layoffs that have affected the gaming sector this year, with the most recent high-profile one being Bungie which laid off 220 employees.
More MP1st Reading:
- Report: Sony’s Firesprite Dark Horror Game to Be From an Established IP, Potentially Releasing on PC Day One
- Report: Bungie Faces Harsh Criticism After Layoffs, CEO Pete Parsons Under Fire for Vehicle Purchases
- Report: Sony to Cut 250 Jobs From “Recordable Media Business,” to Gradually Cease Production of Optical Disc Media Products
[Source: Android Central]
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