Meta acquired the development teams that brought Iron Man and Resident Evil 4 to VR.
Armature Studio, which brought Resident Evil 4 to Quest 2, is joining Oculus Studios alongside Iron Man VR developer Camouflaj. The announcement during Meta Connect accompanies the surprise reveal that one of PSVR’s former exclusives — Iron Man VR — is coming to Quest 2 in November.
Meta isn’t revealing what those studios will be working on yet. They join a growing list of development talent swiped up by Facebook-turned-Meta over the last few years. Beat Saber developer Beat Games was first on the list of acquisitions near the end of 2019 while the most recent attempted purchase attempt, fitness service Supernatural, met opposition by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. In between those Meta acquired:
- Asgard’s Wrath developer Sanzaru Games
- Echo VR developer Ready At Dawn Studios
- Onward developer Downpour Interactive
- Population One developer BigBox VR
- Wilson’s Heart developer Twisted Pixel
Meta also recently acquired Unit2 Games, the company behind a collaborative platform for game-making called Crayta.
Altogether that’s a pretty hefty list now working at Oculus Studios — one of the only places inside Meta where the former Oculus brand still lives. While the focus of Meta Connect’s announcements are largely around Quest Pro — a $1500 headset geared toward professionals — we’ll be curious to see what these development studios cook up during the lifecycle of Meta’s next generation consumer-grade device. We’ve already seen hints suggesting the successor to Quest 2 could see huge boosts in performance powered by a next-generation Qualcomm chipset, and Oculus Studios is likely to lead the way in harnessing that power for VR gaming experiences.
