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

Image courtesy Beat Games, Meta

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

Image courtesy Sanzuru Games, Meta

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.

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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

Image courtesy Ready at Dawn, Meta

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

Image courtesy Downpour Interactive

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.

Post-acquisition Grade: C

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Well before the first modern XR products hit the market, Scott recognized the potential of the technology and set out to understand and document its growth. He has been professionally reporting on the space for nearly a decade as Editor at Road to VR, authoring more than 4,000 articles on the topic. Scott brings that seasoned insight to his reporting from major industry events across the globe.
  • ViRGiN

    Onward devs fired by Zuckerberg has started a new vr game scam called Tier One Direct Action. Take a look how dogshit it is if you're interested. These people are so mental they think calling themselves ex Onward devs is something to be proud of. In reality nearly everyone was just in QA. They asked for 40k on Kickstarter, and they ended up paying half of it themselves lol. Can't wait for this dumpster fire to shut down.

    • Andrey

      Yeah, I saw it. Imagine being "free" from Meta and your previous company and be able to create any shooter you want (better, bigger, deeper in mechanics than what they've previously worked on) – and they announce THIS… And even dare to ask people to fund IT… Hell, even F(v)eil VR looked more promising than this, lol.

      • ViRGiN

        They said they had 23 people in the team, and are asking for 40k. So the money won’t even cover minimum salary for employees? The community manager is a heroin addict, smokes weed all the time as seen by his Reddit account. Their YouTube videos of “devops” are so pathetic, they haven’t showed any development, everything i saw looks like vr template which has been available for years. They never mentioned any risks in the campaign, and when pointed out, they just ban. Regardless, there were barely enough purple to fund this game, at least 3x 5000 is basically their own payment, and also coming from ex Onward community manager who apparently is not working for Niorun. Mr death is still looking for job to this date, which makes me super freaking happy. Imagine thinking “ex Onward devs” sounds good lol.

      • ViRGiN

        Since nearly everyone at niorun was qa tester, these are exactly the people who made sure and approved how crappy Onward was throughout the years. They constantly lie at every stage. They claim to quit their jobs to pursue their passion, but no, they were personally fired by Zuckerberg. Ever noticed how Dante, the original founder, have not spoke once since he sold his company to Meta? He isn’t working at Niorun as well. I assume the company buyout was way more than enough to just retire and relax. I suspect this will never even come out, there is no gameplay, just editor testing walking around. The trailer even had explosion added in as an effect rather than spawning particle. But just call game competitive and the loud minority loses their sanity and makes tierone their personality.

    • VRDeveloper

      The situation is so ironic that it looks like a bad joke.

      • ViRGiN

        No doubt the only winner there was Dante who sold the company. Mark must have been high when he bought it.

  • Well, as a VR enterpreneur/developer myself and knowing other people with a VR company, I'm not surprised that these startups are keeping working on their successful titles. VR is a niche and it is very hard to make a profitable game now, so if you have a cash cow like Beat Saber or Population One, you milk it as much as you can. If you hire a new team and dedicate a lot of money to build a new game, you have always the fear that the new game won't make enough money and will eventually sink you. See what happened with XR Games and its failed launch of Hitman 3 VR.
    In this case, it should be Meta pouring money in them and taking the risks. But in this "years of efficiency" probably also Meta's managers prefer to play safe, so either there is a really good idea which seems poised to sell really well (e.g. Batman for Camouflaj) or all the internal prototypes are probably ditched even before they can see the light.

    • ViRGiN

      How is Pop One a cash cow?

      • Sven Viking

        Do we have any idea how popular the cosmetics are? I don’t pay attention to what’s sold or free, so even though I played an amount I don’t even have an anecdotal idea of how many paid skins you see around.

        • ViRGiN

          Population One as paid game “died” pretty quickly, going free to play helped with the very low playerbase, but even to this day I hear that some game changes killed the game again, like introducing mode with respawn split the already thin playerbase.

          “After just a few months on the Oculus Store, it’s already surpassed the $10M revenue mark”

          So I guess it initially sold well, but the game got old really quickly. If it really was a cash cow, I think they would announce big goals publicly. Tabor doubled their revenue from 10 million to 20 million in about 6 months.

          Showdown is also a battle royale, but that game pretty much died already.

  • kakek

    I'm not shocked by the delay without games after acquisition. AAA titles takes 3 to 5 years to devellop, even on flat.

  • William Wallace

    Bob cooney said after Zuckerberg bought beat saber, it was over for mom and pop fec's.

  • namekuseijin

    Awhile ago I've seen someone either from Sanzaru or Camouflaj mentioning that Armature's project is pretty impressive.

  • What an absolute disgrace ….
    #FuckZuckerberg
    []^ (

  • JB1968

    What a big Meta's failire. Basically in last 5 years they delivered only one new good exclusive game(Asgard2) and another one is not yet out (Batman).

    Neither of those games I'd like to play (but that's my subjective choice). So personally for me it is total fail.

    After reading this article I still don't get the Quest fanboy whiners that are spamming the intetnet with "psvr2 is dead, Sony failed to support vr" because Meta is failing the same if not even more in that regard.

    • ViRGiN

      Quest is f-ing awesome, given the price and being standalone. Obviously things could be better and will get better, but compared to PSVR2/PCVR which has unlimited power in comparison, those are the platforms that truly offer nothing of value given high entry point.

      You could have bought $200 Quest 2, use it a handful of times, and it's still an excellent purchase. You could never say that about Valve Index + PC.

      • JB1968

        Sure, Q2 or Q3s is great entry point to VR for cheap if you are ok with the gfx limitations and have no issues with Facebook as a company.
        But in my case after playing VR games for more than 10 years I'm tired of the poor gfx or washed out genres.
        I can tell you I love low poly(kinda retro) aesthetic in games with original and/or well designed gameplay so its not only about gfx complexity.
        But to my surpise I realized I only played No Mans Sky in VR in the last couple months as this game and devs know how to deliver so standalone hw is not an option for my tastes.