The Order 1886 and Lone Echo developer acquired by Oculus

The creator of PlayStation 4 exclusive The Order 1886 and Oculus Rift VR series Lone Echo has been acquired by Facebook. Vice president of AR/VR content at Facebook, Mike Verdu, shared the news today in a blog post, where he confirmed that the studio will continue development on Lone Echo 2.

The acquisition follows Facebook's 2019 purchase of Beat Saber studio Beat Games. Like Beat Games, Ready at Dawn staff will continue to work from their current offices situated in California and Oregon, but all will be absorbed into Oculus Studios.

"As with any development studio, the people that comprise it are integral to its success, and that's no different for Ready At Dawn," Verdu wrote. "The tight-knit community at the studio and their focus, in turn, on cultivating passionately engaged gaming communities are aspects of the company we admire and intend to maintain."

Ready at Dawn was founded in 2003 and cut its teeth developing games for the PSP. Its first major console game was the 2015 PS4 exclusive The Order: 1886. Since 2017, the studio's predominant focus has been on VR, in particular the Lone Echo series and all of its offshoots. Oculus Studios published Lone Echo, and its standalone multiplayer component, Echo Arena, has been bundled with Oculus Rift headsets.

As for Lone Echo 2, it was originally scheduled for a 2019 release before being pushed back to "Q1 2020." COVID-19 eventually forced the studio to revise that date to a vague 2020 release window.

Shaun Prescott is the Australian editor of PC Gamer. With over ten years experience covering the games industry, his work has appeared on GamesRadar+, TechRadar, The Guardian, PLAY Magazine, the Sydney Morning Herald, and more. Specific interests include indie games, obscure Metroidvanias, speedrunning, experimental games and FPSs. He thinks Lulu by Metallica and Lou Reed is an all-time classic that will receive its due critical reappraisal one day.