Ready at Dawn, the studio behind the visually stunning PS4 exclusive The Order: 1886 as well as two God of War games for PSP, has apparently been hit with massive layoffs by Meta, including the studio head. According to reports, at least one third of the entire studio has been terminated, bringing its overall work force down drastically.
Ready at Dawn was acquired by Oculus Studios, a subsidiary of Meta Platforms, back in June 2020 in order to develop VR titles for the platform. ResetEra recently compiled tweets from various sources confirming that layoffs were happening at the studio under Meta. In addition to Ready at Dawn, Downpour Interactive was also affected in light of Meta announcing that thousands of layoffs were coming.
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“Ready at Dawn was a wonderful studio full of incredible people,” said one former Ready at Dawn developer. “If you see anyone from M*ta (and Ready at Dawn in particular) looking for positions, please signal boost them.”
The new string of layoffs are part of Meta’s attempts to restructure its management hierarchies and teams. Cuts are also expected to hit employees at Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram. Back in November 2022, Meta already laid off around 11,000 employees from its various divisions. Seems like its plans for pushing the Metaverse didn’t work out as intended.
Ready at Dawn was founded in 2003 by Ru Weerasuriya, Andrea Pessino, Didier Malenfant and former members of Naughty Dog. The studio developed its first game, Daxter, in 2006 for PSP before working on both God of War: Chains of Olympus and God of War: Ghost of Sparta for the portable device. In 2009, the studio began working on a new game engine to develop its first original IP which would later become The Order: 1886, a PS4 exclusive action game featuring striking visuals and cover-based shooting.
Ready at Dawn’s future is currently up in the air and it’s unclear what the next steps will be for the studio in light of these layoffs.
Source: Game Developer
