Onward Developer Downpour Interactive Is Oculus’ Next Major Acquisition

In the world of virtual reality gaming, social media conglomerate Facebook sits at the forefront of the market with Oculus under its belt. Since the firm’s acquisition, Facebook has opened its wallet to the VR company with extended resources that has proven to be beneficial on its behalf. In the past, Oculus went to purchase major developers such as Beat Games and Sanzaru Games previously.

Most interesting is the recent purchase for developer Ready at Dawn. While the team previously worked on the PlayStation 4 release The Order 1886, Ready at Dawn later went on to launch Lone Echo and Echo Arena. In the current plans for the developer, Lone Echo II is still in active development, but now with Facebook assisting further alongside Oculus as well.

However, acquisitions are to continue from the platform. In a new announcement on Friday, Oculus announces to purchase Onward developer Downpour Interactive.

We’ve seen great success with Onward on the Oculus platform for several years—first on Rift and more recently on Quest. Becoming part of the Oculus Studios family will give Downpour Interactive the opportunity to cultivate both the Onward community with the full support of Oculus Studios resources, and, in the future, pursue other projects.

Mike Verdu, Facebook Vice President of AR/VR Content

As for future plans following the newest addition to Facebook, it is told that the team will be bringing new content to Onward as the entire Downpour Interactive staff is welcomed to the new family. “We’re exploring many ways to accelerate VR, including investments in third-party content, AAA IP, hardware, and more, and we have awesome and innovative plans for the next few years of gaming.”

In a recent report from UploadVR, Oculus is looking to eventually tackle a controller-free headset. In one statement transcribed by Oculus CTO John Carmack, he explains “we are on this multi-year path to phasing that away as a core feature, where we want to be able to have a controller-free SKU in the future where we rely just on hand tracking.” You can read the full report by heading here.

Are you excited for the future of Downpour Interactive?

Source: Oculus