Meta Shutters Echo Arena & Lone Echo Creator Ready at Sunrise

Meta confirmed to UploadVR that it has closed the development studio behind some of the top VR games.

Ready At Dawn is no more, Meta confirmed after an article about its closure first appeared on Android Central. RAD’s Lone Echo and Echo Arena delivered fluid zero-g gameplay in standout single-player and multiplayer games on Rift and Quest headsets.

Meta acquired Ready At Dawn in 2020, and Lone Echo II in 2021 was the final Oculus Rift exclusive. In 2023, Meta’s shifting priorities under CTO Andrew Bosworth forced the closure of Echo Arena, a beloved zero-g team sport, prompting pleas from former tech guide John Carmack and a reminder from the community of the painful loss its closure caused.

Guest Editorial: The Loss of Echo VR Has Real-World Consequences

Six years ago, I probably would have casually dismissed someone’s grief over an “end of service announcement” for a video game. But that was then, and as a friend recently reminded me, I’ve changed a lot. In April 2017, I was introduced to VR by my son and

Laid Off at Oculus Studios

The closure follows layoffs last year that also affected Downpour Interactive, another Meta-owned studio, the maker of Onward. When Echo Arena was canceled, the studio noted that it was “coming together to focus on our next project. We can’t share anything about that yet, but we’re all excited and need all hands on deck.”

Meta’s history in VR gaming shows a number of acquisitions followed by more founders leaving than new games being announced:

• Camouflaj, the developer behind Iron Man VR, is looking to amaze superhero fans later this year with Batman: Arkham Shadow, featuring real-time shadows that will put Quest 3’s graphical capabilities to the test
• Beat Games has been adding new features and a lot of DLC to its unique title Beat Saber since its acquisition by Meta in late 2019
• Supernatural’s VR fitness service is part of Meta, despite opposition from the US Federal Trade Commission
• Sanzaru Games followed up the PC powerhouse Asgard’s Wrath with Asgard’s Wrath 2 on Quest 2 and 3 in 2023
• The developers of Echo VR, Lone Echo, and Lone Echo II, Ready At Dawn Studios, are each considered to be among the best VR games. They were acquired in 2020 and passed away in August 2024.
• Population: One studio BigBox VR has gone free-to-play with the recent Phoenix Royale update that keeps the game fresh
• Meta also acquired Armature Studio, which brought Resident Evil 4 to Quest 2, as well as Onward developer Downpour Interactive and Wilson’s Heart developer Twisted Pixel

Meanwhile, Meta’s research into all-day AR glasses is consuming tens of billions in manufacturing and investment partnerships. While Google is trying to acquire Meta’s Ray-Ban partnership and fork Android XR, Zuckerberg spent $23 billion on WhatsApp and Oculus VR in 2014as just an entry-level investment to get Horizon OS to where it is today, with the Quest 3 as the leading VR headset in a market that is still in its infancy.

As Zuckerberg maps out AI-generating server farms into the 2030s with goggles, wristbands, and headset technologies, how much money does he have left to support Oculus Studios? And how much money is left to fund third-party VR games on the Horizon store? And how will Meta split funding between store games and Horizon Worlds going forward?