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God of War PSP and The Order 1886 developer Ready at Dawn has reportedly lost one third of its staff in Meta’s latest round of layoffs. The Facebook parent company acquired RAD in June 2020 to develop VR games.
Ready at Dawn studio head let go
RAD wasn’t the only studio affected by the layoffs. According to several (now ex) staffers on Twitter, Onward developer Downpour Interactive was also gutted. Downpour was acquired by Meta in 2021.
Thomas Griebel, a senior engine and graphics programmer at RAD, claimed in a tweet that the studio’s head was among one third of developers that were laid off. It’s unclear if he was talking about Ru Weerasuriya or Andrea Pessino, both of which co-founded RAD.
This is a particularly sad ending for RAD. Founded in 2003 by former Naughty Dog staffers, RAD launched its debut game Daxter on the PSP in 2006. It went on to work on God of War games for the PSP and PS3, and developed PS4 exclusive The Order 1886.
Despite garnering a cult following, The Order 1886 failed to make its mark commercially. RAD released its last PlayStation game Deformers in 2017, which also flopped. Since being acquired, RAD had been making Echo VR games for Oculus Rift and Meta Quest.