Oculus Studios

Oculus Studios
Information
Type	Division
Industry	Video games, virtual reality
Notable Personnel	Jason Rubin (head of worldwide studios from 2014), Mike Verdu (director of AR/VR content in 2019), Gio Hunt (vice president of Oculus Studios in 2024), Tamara Sciamanna (Oculus Studios director in 2026)
Products	First-party VR games for Oculus Rift and Meta Quest
Parent	Meta Platforms (Reality Labs)

Oculus Studios is the first-party game label of Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook), part of its Reality Labs division. The label dates from the Oculus VR era, before Facebook renamed itself Meta, and it has funded, published and co-developed virtual reality games for the Oculus Rift and the Meta Quest headsets, including Lone Echo, Echo VR, Asgard's Wrath and Batman: Arkham Shadow. Between 2019 and 2022 Facebook, later Meta, announced the purchase of nine VR game studios for Oculus Studios, among them Beat Games (Beat Saber), Sanzaru Games, Ready at Dawn, BigBox VR (Population: One), Camouflaj and Twisted Pixel Games.

The label kept the Oculus name after Facebook renamed itself Meta in October 2021 and phased the Oculus brand out of most of its products. In March 2023 Meta called Oculus Studios its "first-party label" and gave its third-party publishing program the companion name Oculus Publishing. Meta closed Ready at Dawn in 2024 and Twisted Pixel Games, Sanzaru Games and Armature Studio in January 2026, as it moved funding from VR toward smart glasses.

Reviewed 29 September 2026. Every dated fact, quote, title, author and acquisition or closure date checked against the cited Meta, Road to VR, UploadVR, Variety, CNBC, Android Central, Game Informer, SiliconANGLE, GamesMarket and The Next Web sources. About review dates.

History

Oculus content team (2014-2018)

On 10 June 2014, after Facebook's March 2014 purchase agreement for Oculus VR, the company hired Jason Rubin, a co-founder of Naughty Dog, as head of worldwide studios. Oculus said he would head its first-party content initiatives in Seattle, San Francisco, Menlo Park, Dallas and Irvine. When Meta announced Oculus Publishing in 2023, it described that year as "a full decade since the inception of the original Oculus Content Team."

Oculus chief executive Brendan Iribe told Gamasutra in 2015 that the company was fully funding about two dozen Rift-exclusive games, including Insomniac Games' Edge of Nowhere. Oculus also planned to spend US$10 million on independent VR game development. Outside games, Oculus was pursuing VR work through divisions such as Oculus Story Studio. Oculus Studios published the Rift and Touch games made by outside partners such as Sanzaru Games (VR Sports Challenge in 2016, Marvel Powers United VR in 2018 and Asgard's Wrath in 2019) and Ready at Dawn (Lone Echo and Echo VR). Insomniac developed four Oculus Studios titles before Sony bought it in 2019.

By 2017 Oculus had publicly committed US$500 million to VR content. Road to VR listed Chronos, Edge of Nowhere, Robo Recall, Dragon Front, SUPERHOT VR and The Unspoken among the games that funding had produced. Rubin, by then Oculus' head of content, said at Oculus Connect 4 that Lone Echo was the fastest title to reach US$1 million in revenue on the Oculus platform. He also said that some of the titles past that mark were not published by Oculus Studios. Rubin described the company's funding moving from investments of US$100,000 to US$200,000 toward projects in the US$1 million to US$5 million range.

Studio acquisitions (2019-2022)

Facebook bought its first studio for the label on 26 November 2019, when it acquired Beat Games, the Prague developer of Beat Saber. In the announcement, Facebook AR/VR director of content Mike Verdu said Beat Games would operate as an independent studio under Oculus Studios and keep supporting Beat Saber on every platform it already ran on. Sanzaru Games followed on 25 February 2020. Facebook said "the vast majority of Sanzaru" would join the Oculus Studios team and keep working from its offices in the United States and Canada. Ready at Dawn was third, on 22 June 2020, with Facebook saying that "the entire Ready At Dawn team will be joining the Oculus Studios team." Road to VR described these early purchases as partly defensive, since Oculus Studios had published the studios' VR games and had seen Sony buy Insomniac in 2019.

Downpour Interactive, maker of the military shooter Onward, joined in April 2021; its chief executive, Dante Buckley, wrote that the studio was "joining Oculus Studios at Facebook." BigBox VR, developer of the battle royale Population: One, became the fifth acquisition on 11 June 2021. Facebook said it would help the studio "pursue future projects, with access to the resources and support of Facebook and Oculus Studios."

Meta announced in October 2021 that it would buy Within, the Los Angeles company behind the fitness service Supernatural. The US Federal Trade Commission sued to block the deal in July 2022, but a federal court sided with Meta, and the purchase, reportedly valued at US$400 million, closed in February 2023. At Meta Connect on 11 October 2022, Meta said three more studios were joining Oculus Studios: Camouflaj (Marvel's Iron Man VR), Twisted Pixel Games (Wilson's Heart and Path of the Warrior) and Armature Studio (the Quest port of Resident Evil 4). That brought its total to nine.

Oculus Publishing and the Quest era (2023-2025)

At the Game Developers Conference on 22 March 2023, Meta named its third-party publishing arm Oculus Publishing. It told Road to VR that Oculus Studios, its first-party studio, would continue to exist. Meta's developer blog described Oculus Publishing as "a companion program to our first-party label Oculus Studios," and said it had helped fund more than 300 titles, with another 150 in active development.

Several acquired studios shrank or changed direction in this period. In February 2023 Meta announced that it would shut down Echo VR. Downpour founder Dante Buckley left in March 2023, a month before Meta announced layoffs at Downpour and Ready at Dawn. Sanzaru released Asgard's Wrath 2 for Quest 2 and Quest 3 in 2023. On 7 August 2024 Meta closed Ready at Dawn, a part of Oculus Studios since June 2020. Android Central saw an internal memo from Gio Hunt, vice president of Oculus Studios, and reported that the closure followed a new Reality Labs budget ceiling. Meta told Ready at Dawn staff they could apply to other studios within Oculus Studios.

Batman: Arkham Shadow, which Meta described as "developed by Camouflaj and Oculus Studios" with Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment and DC, came out for Meta Quest 3 and Meta Quest 3S in October 2024. Meta also bundled the game with new Quest 3 and Quest 3S headsets. On 17 June 2025 Meta stopped active development of Onward and permanently merged Downpour's team into Camouflaj. Meta announced Twisted Pixel's Marvel's Deadpool VR on 6 June 2025 as a Quest 3 and 3S exclusive. It was the studio's first release since Meta bought it, and it came out late that year.

2026 closures

On 13 January 2026 CNBC reported that Meta was cutting more than 1,000 jobs, about 10% of Reality Labs, and that the studios being closed were Armature Studio, Twisted Pixel and Sanzaru, along with a technical unit called Oculus Studios Central Technology. It also reported that Supernatural was moved into maintenance mode. In a memo reported by Bloomberg, Oculus Studios director Tamara Sciamanna wrote: "With this change we are shifting our investment to focus on our third-party developers and partners to ensure long-term sustainability."

UploadVR reported two days later that Camouflaj had not been shut down but had lost many staff and would no longer develop VR games. The planned Batman: Arkham Shadow sequel, which Sanzaru had been working on, was cancelled. By UploadVR's count, only three Meta game studios remained meaningfully active: Beat Games, BigBox VR and Ouro Interactive, which makes games for Horizon Worlds.

Rubin, by then Meta's vice president of Metaverse Experience, announced in February 2026 that he would leave the company in March. In his LinkedIn post he wrote that he had "helped to build the Oculus Content team, Meta's first content production and dev rel organization." On 19 February 2026, Reality Labs vice president of content Samantha Ryan set out Meta's VR plans for the year. She wrote that "while we're proud of the world-class work from Oculus Studios over the years," 86% of the effective time people spend in VR headsets, counting first- and third-party apps, was with third-party apps. She also said that Meta had put nearly US$150 million into VR developer programs in 2025. On 3 June 2026 Meta said it would spin Supernatural off into an independent company, Supernatural Health, led by the app's original founders. Meta's own version of the app is due to shut down on 3 December 2026.

Acquired studios

The table lists the nine studios Meta acquired for Oculus Studios, with their status as last reported.

Studio	Known for	Acquisition announced	Status
Beat Games	Beat Saber	26 November 2019	Operating; Beat Saber is run as a live-service game
Sanzaru Games	Asgard's Wrath, Asgard's Wrath 2	25 February 2020	Closed 13 January 2026
Ready at Dawn	Lone Echo, Lone Echo II, Echo VR	22 June 2020	Closed 7 August 2024
Downpour Interactive	Onward	April 2021	Merged into Camouflaj on 17 June 2025
BigBox VR	Population: One, Smashbox Arena	11 June 2021	Operating; Population: One is run as a live-service game
Within	Supernatural	October 2021; completed February 2023	Spin-off of Supernatural as Supernatural Health announced 3 June 2026; Meta's version due to close 3 December 2026
Camouflaj	Marvel's Iron Man VR, Batman: Arkham Shadow	11 October 2022	Open after January 2026 layoffs; no longer developing VR games
Twisted Pixel Games	Wilson's Heart, Marvel's Deadpool VR	11 October 2022	Closed 13 January 2026
Armature Studio	Resident Evil 4 VR (Quest port)	11 October 2022	Closed 13 January 2026

See also

• Oculus VR
• Reality Labs
• Oculus Story Studio
• Meta Horizon Store