Three One Zero, the developer behind one of the most anticipated games of the Oculus Rift launch, has “run its course”, according to its founding member.
That would be Adam Orth, a former Microsoft employee who formed the startup studio after he left the company. Speaking to GamesBeat, Orth revealed that he is joining First Contact, the LA-based developer formed of videogame industry veterans that last year released polished VR shooter, ROM: Extraction.
Three One Zero only created one game, Adr1ft [Review: 6/10], which released alongside the Rift on March 28th, 2016. It was a story-driven experience that tasked players with surviving in the depths of space following a catastrophic accident that leaves them stranded in the debris of a station. Orth wrote the narrative as a metaphor for his experiences in the fallout of leaving Microsoft. He had teased other VR projects to come from the company, but it looks like these were not to be, unless he brought those concepts over to his new studio.
Visually stunning and atmospherically arresting, Adr1ft had a lot of potential, though it didn’t quite meet it. In our review we noted that there were “too many gameplay missteps” like poor VR integration and a tendency to make people ill to really make it worth playing. The game later came to the HTC Vive, though was also playable on standard monitors. A PS4 version was released, though PlayStation VR support wasn’t included.
Three One Zero’s shuttering was hinted at late last year with the below tweet.
Signing off… pic.twitter.com/3ND5WaXttu
— Three One Zero (@ThreeOneZero_) January 1, 2017
In an interview, Orth said that he was proud of the work the team had carried out in its short time together. He joins First Contact as a creative strategist, saying that he is “all in on VR.” He also teased that the studio was “solving hard problems from the VR standpoint,” though didn’t share anything more specific.
ROM: Extraction will soon be getting DLC. As for other projects, they remain a mystery for now.
