Mark two down for Facebook today. First Microsoft announced it was killing its streaming platform, Mixer, and instead partnering with Facebook Gaming as a streaming service. Now The Order: 1886 developer Ready at Dawn announced it has been acquired by Facebook. The acquisition was announced on Twitter by founder and CEO Ru Weerasuriya:
Nearly 17 years ago, we embarked on a journey to build a game studio. Along the way, we innovated on genres, experiences, games and platforms. Today, we’re excited to join the Facebook family as we open a new chapter in our story and continue to pursue our passions #WeAreRAD pic.twitter.com/KyaorRyPpn
— Ru Weerasuriya (@Ru_Weerasuriya) June 22, 2020
The move isn’t all that surprising given the companies most recent work developing VR titles for the Oculus. While PlayStation fans may know Ready at Dawn from their work on the PlayStation exclusive The Order: 1886, as well as a number of PSP titles including Daxter, God of War: Ghost of Sparta, and God of War: Chains of Olympus, they haven’t released a game on PS4 since three years ago in mid-2017.
The acquisition solidifies this direction, meaning Ready at Dawn will push forward making VR content for Oculus. In a blog post welcoming the studio to the Oculus family, the company said “As part of the Oculus Studios team, Ready At Dawn will continue creating memorable, immersive, and innovative VR content for gamers around the world as an independently-operated studio. We’re thrilled to welcome them to the family.”
The remainder of the blog post focuses exclusively on VR and VR experiences, so don’t expect to ever them develop The Order: 1887 or that big AAA game the studio was hiring for come to PlayStation or PSVR, as Ready at Dawn is now a first-party Oculus developer. This move is despite recent comments from the founder about next-gen consoles, as well as saying years back that The Order: 1886 was developed with sequels in mind.
The Order: 1886 IP is owned by Sony, however, so the PlayStation company could choose to toss development over to another studio, not completely ruling out The Order: 1887 at some point in the future.
[Source: Oculus]
