Ready At Dawn’s Co-Founder Believes VR Needs More Competition & Innovation

In a new interview, Ready at Dawn’s co-founder said he believes not enough developers are pushing the boundaries of VR.

Speaking with Christopher Dring at The Game Business following the formation of Atlantis Studio, Ru Weerasuriya touched upon his former studio’s history from Daxter to the Lone Echo series in a recent interview. Explaining how Ready at Dawn pivoted to VR after a sequel to The Order: 1866 fell through, Weerasuriya shared his thoughts on the current VR market and its future.

Stating he still believes in the technology, Weerasuriya highlights immersion and embodiment as key strengths in VR gaming, while pointing to how the industry has “stuttered” in recent years. Weerasuriya then states that his belief is that not enough developers are pushing the technology’s boundaries and innovating, instead being more focused on responding to players.

“There are still things that haven’t been done that I believe should be done in VR,” stated the former co-founder.

Touching upon the studio’s history further, Weerasuriya sees Meta as “truly” believing in VR but informed Dring that it wasn’t initially looking to be acquired back in 2020. Ready at Dawn was “quite happy being independent” but wanted to work on both VR games and PS5 games, though PlayStation VR2 isn’t mentioned here. He also explains that Lone Echo 2 “was supposed to be our last VR game.”

Weerasuriya advised that Meta approached Ready at Dawn with a “strong vision” about breaking boundaries, confirming this is what convinced them to be acquired, and he considers the early days “a really amazing relationship.” However, priorities later changed, and in the later years, the studio “wasn’t quite aligned” with where Meta was taking things.

Ready At Dawn Was Working On A “Revolutionary” VR Game When Meta Shut It Down

Ready At Dawn was working on one of the “most revolutionary VR games ever” when Meta shut it, the studio’s co-founder claims.

As for the team’s cancelled VR project, Weerasuriya confirmed Ready At Dawn was trying to do “something that nobody had done” before Meta closed the studio last year. This was previously touched upon during MinnMax’s interview with the studio’s other co-founder, Andrea Pessino, back in February.

Describing this as “one of the biggest and most revolutionary VR games ever,” Pessino confirmed this turned into a death spiral following the studio’s second round of layoffs in 2023, where the shrinking team couldn’t match the studio’s ambition.

“It was coming along beautifully in my opinion. But it was a big, expensive thing, which we couldn’t have possibly finished when we were down to like under 70. You know, there’s no way in a million years that we could finish it that way, but we were always told we will start to rehire and rebuild and extend the team. But we never got to that point. All we ever did was shrink until they shut us down.”

As for Weerasuriya’s Atlantis Studio, for which he’s also a co-founder, there’s currently no indication that his new studio will work on VR games at this time. Weerasuriya informed Dring that the team’s unlikely to grow beyond 25-30 people and isn’t driven by specific platforms right now, saying it’s currently looking at an “AA-type” game and budget.