Through its Oculus Studios, Facebook has acquired Beat Games, the award-winning team behind Beat Saber. In Prague, Beat Games will function as an independently operated studio, where creating music-centric virtual reality experiences remains the team’s primary goal. Beat Saber fans should not fret over how this acquisition may affect the beloved VR title. Beat Games will continue to support the game across all platforms with new updates. The key difference is that the studio will now have even more support, thanks to Facebook.
It appears the combined efforts of Beat Games and Oculus Studios serves as an attempt to further explore the possibilities with regards to VR. This applies to virtual reality itself, games, and music. Oculus Studios recognizes Beat Games has “only scratched the surface with Beat Saber” as far as music, modes, and social features are concerned. How might this new alliance push the medium forward? We’ll have to wait and see.
In a brief FAQ post embedded within a press release, a few concerns were preemptively addressed. For one, Beat Saber’s 360° Levels mode remains on track for its December launch. More music is set to arrive this year, as well. Additionally, the press release addressed worries over whether Beat Games may become another indie studio ruined because of its purchase by a large company. Apparently, the mindset internally centers on looking at the situation as an indie team joining “like-minded allies” to push VR in new and interesting directions.
Beat Saber is in stores now for the PlayStation VR, HTC Vive, Oculus Quest, and other PC-supported VR headsets.
[Source: Oculus via Beat Saber on Twitter]
