Sanzaru Games, the California-based development team, has been acquired by Facebook and will join Oculus Studios to “pursue a future of rich, immersive, and original VR game content.”
The recent acquisition was announced via a blog post on the Oculus site by Direct of Content, Mike Verdu. Verdu goes on to explain why Sanzaru Games was chosen to become an in-house dev team:
Sanzaru is a veteran game developer—having shipped games to multiple platforms in the past—as well as a VR pioneer: They’ve created four titles for the Oculus platform since 2016, when they were the first developer to partner with the Oculus Studios team (Ripcoil, VR Sports Challenge, MARVEL Powers United VR, Asgard’s Wrath). With Facebook’s latest advancements in VR technology, Sanzaru can readily explore a future of rich and immersive original VR content.
Sanzaru Games will continue to operate as an independent studio out of their current offices in the US and Canada, but with the full support of Facebook and, of course, the Oculus Studios team.
Oculus also confirms that the “vast majority” of the Sanzaru staff will be joining the Oculus team; we’re not entirely sure what’s going with the other team members who aren’t joining up with Oculus.
In recent years, Sanzaru Games has released several VR titles such as Asgard’s Wrath, Marvel Powers United VR, and Ripcoil.
In 2013, Sanzaru Games even developed the fourth entry in Sony’s Sly Cooper franchise after working on a remastered collection of the first three titles for PS3 and PS Vita.
