Downpour Interactive, the maker of multiplayer VR first-person shooter (FPS), Onward, is the latest developer to be acquired by Facebook.
The news was announced today on the Oculus Blog, which states that Facebook will “support Dante [Buckley, Downpour CEO] and Downpour Interactive in growing Onward as one of the foremost multiplayer VR games”. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed, though Downpour did confirm that the entire team is joining Facebook.
Onward will continue to be supported on Steam, Facebook says, where it’s available in Early Access, following the acquisition. The blog post also confirms that Downpour has plans for “future projects” and that it hopes to release them to “as many people as possible”.
Since release on Steam in 2016 Onward has proved to be one of VR’s most popular multiplayer shooters. Its focus on military realism gave a lot of VR fans exactly what they were looking for in the early days of consumer VR and Downpour has offered consistent support for the game since, adding new maps, modes and fixes.
Onward came to Oculus Quest in 2020 with support from Coatsink. The standalone version of the game features full cross-play support with the PC VR versions, a fact that actually saw a drop in visual fidelity on PC at release. Downpour has slowly but surely continued to rebuild the PC version from a visual perspective, though.
There are plenty more plans for Onward, too. Anti-cheat measures were introduced into the game this week, and new maps are planned for future updates too.
Downpours joins Beat Games, Ready at Dawn and Sanzaru Games as Facebook-owned Oculus Studios developers.
