Meta has aggressively expanded its VR game portfolio with the acquisition of nine VR studios since 2019. We take a look what’s come of these deals over the last five years.
Acquisition by Meta usually means a few things. Sometimes it means studios get a ton of new resources and the sort of stability that comes with being beamed up into the mothership of any platform holder. It can also mean less flexibility in what developers can do, as they’re beholden to maintaining hit game properties that got them the attention of Meta in the first place, or forced to develop for a single platform.
In all, Meta has acquired nine studios that have demonstrated varying post-acquisition performance—only few of which have seemed to really break the mold by offering up increasingly compelling follow-up content.
Beat Games – Known for Beat Saber, Acquired 2019
Meta acquired Beat Games in 2019 to ensure that Beat Saber would continue evolving with new features and content, while emphasizing that the studio would maintain some independence.
While the block-slashing rhythm game has seen regular updates and DLC music packs from major artists, perhaps the biggest addition to the game itself, since the acquisition, is the inclusion of multiplayer. Meanwhile, other promises have gone unfulfilled, like custom sabers and a mixed reality mode—both of which have been teased a year or more ago.
There’s been no fundamental changes to the core Beat Saber formula. One might think that’s because the once-innovative Beat Games had moved on to working on its next big project. Alas, five years later there’s still no indication that Beat Games is working on anything but keeping Beat Saber going.
Considering that Beat Saber is one of VR’s most profitable games, this surely makes sense. But Beat Games doesn’t appear to be pushing the envelope, or signaling release of anything new beyond what we’ve already seen. Its founders Jan Ilavsky, Jaroslav Beck, and Vladimir Hrincar have also all since left the company, leaving it increasingly dependent on Meta’s direction.
Post-acquisition Grade: B
Sanzaru Games – Known for Asgard’s Wrath, Acquired 2020
At the time of its 2020 acquisition, Meta indicated that Sanzaru would continue to develop large-scale VR titles, building off the success of Asgard’s Wrath (2019), a Rift-exclusive RPG that came out one year before the acquisition.
In 2023, the studio served up Asgard’s Wrath 2. Not only did the studio deliver a sequel, it managed to cram it within the confines of Quest 2 and Quest 3, a challenging feat compared to the much more powerful PC platform that its predecessor had shipped on.
However, this created something of a rift. Although the sequel is set in an entirely new location and has a new storyline, if you didn’t own a VR-ready PC you simply can’t play the original game on Quest, which was a definite sore spot.
Still, the sequel is widely considered a benchmark for visual fidelity on Quest, nabbing the game a solid [4.2/5] user review score. But it took some serious time. It was nearly four years from the acquisition to the launch of Asgard’s Wrath 2. While we can appreciate the challenge of switching the studio’s entire workflow to build games for Quest, we certainly hope it won’t take another four years to see what the studio does next.
Post-acquisition Grade: B+
Ready at Dawn – Known for Lone Echo & Echo VR, Acquired 2020
Ready at Dawn is the studio behind Lone Echo, which launched in 2017 as one of VR’s biggest and best looking games in the days before Quest. Its signature zero-G locomotion was so flexible that the studio even spun out a separate multiplayer game called Echo VR.
Eventually, development on Lone Echo II began, with announced plans to launch in 2019. But a series of delays ensued. Meta came along and aquiried Ready at Dawn in 2020, seemingly willing to help the studio complete the game and build on the social success of Echo VR.
The studio did eventually release the single-player adventure Lone Echo II for Rift in 2021. And given Meta’s shifting focus from PC to Quest, it was widely expected the studio would bring the still-loved Echo VR over to the new headset.
But things didn’t work out that way. It was only three years after the acquisition that Ready at Dawn announced it was sunsetting Echo VR.
The decision rightfully disappointed fans, although the studio said it was “focusing on our next project,” which seemed promising. Then, in August 2024, Meta shut down the studio entirely.
Post-acquisition Grade: F+ (see me after class)
Downpour Interactive – Known for Onward, Acquired 2021
Onward has been a mainstay for VR mil-sim players since it released on Steam and Rift in 2016. With the acquisition of Downpour Interactive in 2021, Meta saw this as an opportunity to support a popular game, noting at the time it wanted to help “in growing Onward as one of the foremost multiplayer VR games.”
A year before its acquisition, Onward suffered a pretty bumpy launch on Quest, although it’s seen improvements in stability and visuals, still garnering the game a strong following to this day and a whopping 17,000 user reviews on Quest, putting it at a solid [4.2/5] in user ratings.
Still, Onward post-acquisition advancements have been incremental rather than transformative.
While Meta has made good on its promise to keep the game cross-platform, the port to Quest drew wide criticism from players who noted a major graphical downgrade in the PC version that was deemed necessary to get the game onto Quest while still supporting both platforms.
Like Beat Games, one might have thought the pace of updates meant was busy brewing up its next big game, but no such thing has been announced. And it’s unclear if it ever will be; studio founder and CEO Dante Buckley left the company in March 2023, just one month before Meta announced wide-ranging layoffs at Downpour and Ready at Dawn.