Lone Echo Developer Bought By Oculus

 

The developer behind the VR games Lone Echo and Echo Arena, Ready At Dawn Studios, was recently bought by Oculus. Ready At Dawn is a seasoned game developer, launching games to multiple platforms in the past years, and is also one of the first VR studios. 

Since 2017, Ready At Dawn created four games for the Oculus platform, Lone Echo, Echo Arena, Echo Combat, and Lone Echo II. Facebook was impressed by the zero-g continuous locomotion system and full-body IK (inverse kinematics), the signature of the studio, and decided to buy it off. With Facebook’s latest advancements in VR technology and the aid of Oculus, Ready At Dawn can now achieve bigger dreams. 

At the moment, Ready At Dawn is working hard on Lone Echo II and plans to continue to develop the game out of their current offices in Irvine, CA, and Portland, OR, and Facebook stated that the Oculus Team is behind them 100%. The main focus, for the creative team, is to deliver Lone Echo II, so no other projects are being announced right now. Also, Ready at Dawn did not stipulate if they are an independent studio or if they will be working as part of Oculus Studios. They did say that the entire Ready At Dawn team will be joining the Oculus Studios team. 

Facebook wants Ready At Dawn to continue to create memorable, immersive, and innovative VR experiences, content, or games as an independently-operated studio. With the help of the zero-g mechanic, used throughout the Echo Games franchise, this might signal the first move that Facebook has made into esports competitive VR Gaming. We can only extrapolate from the Q and A that flagged the buyout, that these strategic movements will lead to a competitive VR game from Ready at Dawn. When will this title launch? Nobody knows. The studio needs to launch Lone Echo II, and maybe after that will see some new game.