Meta laid off dozens of employees across its acquired VR studios, including the fitness app Supernatural.
The Verge first reported the layoffs a few hours ago, and a Meta spokesperson confirmed to the outlet that “some teams within Oculus Studios are undergoing shifts in structure and roles that have impacted team size.”
In a post in the Official Supernatural Community on Facebook, the developer confirmed “the loss of some of our incredibly talented team members” as part of a move to “work more efficiently”. It tells users to expect a reduction in workout releases, though says that more workouts will have multiple intensity options, which it claims will actually result in a greater number of suitable workouts for each user.
The Verge also writes that “some employees involved in the company’s hardware efforts” were laid off too, but says the Meta spokesperson declined to comment on this.
Bloomberg also reported on the layoffs a few minutes ago, and added that these other affected employees were in “operations”, and laid off because Meta “hopes to streamline similar work being done across two different teams”. A source familiar with the matter independently confirmed this to UploadVR, adding that these operations layoffs affected a very small number of staff.
According to Bloomberg, laid off Meta employees are eligible to apply for new roles at the company.
David Heaney
This is not the first time that Meta has laid off staff in its acquired VR studios. In 2023 the company laid off “a lot” of employees at Onward’s developer Downpour Interactive, and “many” at Echo VR’s developer Ready at Dawn.
Meta then shut down Ready at Dawn last year, while Downpour went on to release Onward Update 2.0 last month.
Meta’s remaining acquired studios include:
- Beat Games (Beat Saber)
- Camouflaj (Iron Man VR & Batman: Arkham Shadow)
- Within (Supernatural)
- Sanzaru Games (Asgard’s Wrath & Asgard’s Wrath 2)
- BigBox VR (Population: One)
- Armature Studio (Resident Evil 4 VR)
- Twisted Pixel (Wilson’s Heart)
At the time of writing, it’s unknown which of these studios are also affected by the new layoffs, beyond Supernatural.
