Despite some spirited protests against it, Meta and its child-studio Ready at Dawn are set to shut down the popular multiplayer game Echo VR, with plans to turn off servers come August 1st. While the sporty Echo Arena portion of the game has always been free on both Quest and Rift, the squad-based shooter half of Echo VR, Echo Combat, will be free on PC from now until server shutdown.

Update (May 3rd, 2023): Ready at Dawn announced it’s granting free access to Echo Combat to everyone, which was previously sold as a $10 in-app purchase. Echo Combat is unfortunately PC-only, so there’s no native version for Quest, meaning you’ll need Link or Air Link and a VR-ready PC if you want to jump in with the small but dedicated crew of Echo Combat players.

Check out the trailer below to see Echo Combat in action:

Original Article (January 31st, 2023): Echo VR has had a storied journey, having originally launched as an Oculus Rift exclusive title all the way back in 2017. In 2020 the game made the leap to Quest, allowing cross-play multiplayer between Rift and Quest players. Shortly thereafter, Meta announced that it had acquired the game’s developer, Ready at Dawn.

And though it stands as one of the best-rated and most popular free titles on the Quest store, Meta has announced it plans to shut the game down for good on August 1st. According to the announcement from Ready at Dawn, the main reason behind the planned shuttering is because the studio is “coming together to focus on our next project.”

Although not mentioned specifically, it’s hard to imagine that the broader layoffs at Meta (and other major tech companies) has nothing to do with the announcement. Especially considering that Ready at Dawn released its last game, Lone Echo II, more than a year ago; ostensibly the studio has been well at work on its “next project” for quite some time now.

SEE ALSO
Meta CTO Confirms Work on "glasses form-factor" Mixed Reality Device

In addition to being one of the platform’s most popular free multiplayer games, Echo VR also had one of the most robust in-app purchase offerings of any VR title so far, with a battlepass-style system that allowed players to pay for the chance to unlock cosmetic rewards over the course of seven seasons. Unfortunately the studio has confirmed that refunds for in-game content will not be offered.

Image courtesy Ready at Dawn, Oculus

As a parting gift, at least, the studio says players who play the game between now and when it shuts down will receive a heap of premium cosmetic items for free:

From now until August 1, 2023, play just one match of either Echo Combat or Arena to unlock:

  • All Epic + Superb rarity chassis/booster/bracer sets from Echo Pass seasons 1–6
    Season 7 rewards to be released at a later date

The following rewards will NOT be included in the event

  • VRML rewards

Leveling Track

  • We will now be granting all leveling track items at lvl 1 so everyone gains access to these rewards without impacting matchmaking quality.

Echo Shop

  • We will place all legendary chassis/booster/bracer sets for sale on the Echo Shop at reduced prices until the game shuts down.

And last but not least, Ready at Dawn confirmed that Echo Combat, the lesser-played FPS variant of the game (which never made the leap to Quest) will also be shutting down as of August 1st, and is already no longer available for purchase.

Additional reporting by Scott Hayden.

Newsletter graphic

This article may contain affiliate links. If you click an affiliate link and buy a product we may receive a small commission which helps support the publication. More information.


Ben Lang
Ben is the world's most senior professional analyst solely dedicated to the XR industry, having founded Road to VR in 2011—a year before the Oculus Kickstarter sparked a resurgence that led to the modern XR landscape. He has authored more than 3,000 articles chronicling the evolution of the XR industry over more than a decade. With that unique perspective, Ben has been consistently recognized as one of the most influential voices in XR, giving keynotes and joining panel and podcast discussions at key industry events. He is a self-described "journalist and analyst, not evangelist."
  • Ballsy VR

    Hmmm

  • gothicvillas

    Are there any good news concerning Meta?

    • Stu Woody

      Fingers crossed for Bankruptcy. Remember all those companies in the past that didn’t listen to their customers ? No, Neither can I. Because they died and went away. Metabollocks I say : )

      • ViRGiN

        gabe, is that you?

  • Cooe

    Time to go complain to Meta’s customer service teams! We need to make it EXTREMELY CLEAR to Meta as a company that actions like this aren’t acceptable. If there ever was a time to kick up a stink as a VR community, this is it.

    • kool

      No sit down and accept the growing pains of a fledgling industry. Meta will need all the headset they can get for echo VR. Not split between new comers and gigs trying to play them old game.

  • jdp

    Complete insanity, how can it possibly cost them that much to just maintain basic server function even if it means no updates.

    • kool

      It could cost them the metaverse…if they dont like echo 3 they will go back to echo VR split the community and rob meta of a large online community and we know how much they love those.

      • Cooe

        We don’t even know if Lone Echo III is the next game they are developing. In fact, all the best guesses say it’s not. (Lone Echo II didn’t sell that great.)

        • kool

          Whatever it is it has to be similar that’s only reason I can think to cut off a thriving community.

        • Jonathan Winters III

          There will be no Lone Echo III on PCVR. When’s the last time Meta financed a PCVR title? Years ago. They stated about 3 years ago they’re mobile going forward.

        • kool

          They wouldn’t need to shut down the servers to port those games over to quest3. I think whatever they are working as close enough to line echo to not want to split an online community between 2 different IPS.

  • Such wasted potential. Unless they are working on echo combat 2, i really don’t care.

    • kool

      They are and it will launch with quest 3. They wanted everyone on the headset asap did you not seen the earnings call.

      • How do you know they are? That would be really awesome! I didn’t see anything.

        • kool

          Hey said they have something coming up that they haven’t announced yet in the message.

        • kool

          They said it on the shut down announcement.

  • NL_VR

    Stupid decision.
    No finger top feeling here on the community.
    I expect they make something new similar sports game because this game worked verry well as esport

  • ViRGiN

    Everyone butthurt about game they don’t even play, meanwhile nobody cares when valve cancels steamvr support for macos in less than 4 years

    • Ookami

      can’t think of any good defense or justification, so you just go the ole “but muh Valve”?

      • ViRGiN

        What’s to defend? Wait for the offloaded team to start fruiting.

        • Ookami

          Way more people play Echo VR than anyone who cares about mac support for SteamVR. Nobody buys a mac PC for gaming anyway.

          • ViRGiN

            Found the valve apologist.

          • Ookami

            Prove me wrong.

          • ViRGiN

            Show me the numbers for Echo.

          • Ookami

            LOL don’t pretend like no one is playing it. It’s one of the most popular games on the Meta platform, and you know it.

          • ViRGiN

            So you’re talking about “big numbers” and yet have none to share?

          • Ookami

            Meta doesn’t publish exact numbers. Don’t pretend you don’t know that. But as one of the more popular games, you’d think it’d have big numbers, unless you’re suggesting nobody is playing on Meta headsets.
            Besides if you’d poke your head out of your little bubble you’d see that there’s a lot of people that are upset over this.

          • ViRGiN

            There were also more comments than players when Swords of Gargantua pulled the same trick. They have since promised to bring it back online early this year, but it’s been silent ever since, and i haven’t seen a single player reminiscing the nostalgia for this game.

          • Ookami

            Lol I’m not talking about the comments section here

          • ViRGiN

            I’m not talking about gaming on mac either

          • Ookami

            of course you aren’t. You didn’t even mention it–you specifically didn’t mention it in the first comment. For sure you didn’t use it to deflect from the fact that they’re shutting down Echo VR. I hallucinated it all.

          • ViRGiN

            I was talking about valve abandoning macos, and you came up with your own theories that nobody buys mac for gaming. Guess what, macs are really great productivity tools, and the support for it has been dropped. That’s a fact, no matter how you feel.

          • Ookami

            In other words you lied in you last post.

          • ViRGiN

            No, you just jumped to conclusions and made your own projections as to why valve abandoned macos

          • Ookami

            LOL you just can’t help but scarecrow other people’s arguments, can you? Are you really that insecure about your own opinions? I never even touched on Valve’s reasons for not supporting SteamVR on MacOS.

          • ViRGiN

            My sincere apology. For a good minute i thought you said “Way more people play Echo VR than anyone who cares about mac support for SteamVR. Nobody buys a mac PC for gaming anyway” but I’ve been indeed hallucinating. I’m sure nobody installs Linux for gaming, but yet valve is “supporting” it.

          • Ookami

            Good first step, You actually used a real quote, and not one that you made up from thin air. That’s excellent progress, but you can still do better: Now reread what I said and think about what I didn’t say (I said nothing on Valve’s reasoning, as that was irrelevant from my post). After that, the next step is for you to look at that comment in full context (you were the one who brought it up to deflect criticism from Meta).

          • WYSI727

            what the hell have i just read

          • Ookami

            It’s called sarcasm

      • ViRGiN

        any comments on valve rugpull through stopping support for windows 7?
        millions of players around the world can’t afford to upgrade. why people are stripped of their civil right to play a game they purchased 15 years ago, is completly offline, and works perfectly under windows 7? why do we need crappy outdated steam launcher that gets at least three updates every single day not improving anything ever?

        • Ookami

          Why are you so desperately trying to deflect here that you keep returning to a 3 month old post to bring up unrelated stuff.

          • ViRGiN

            Why do you care about 3 month old topic that is right now on the front page?

    • philingreat

      But why shutting down a game that is in most popular since forever? It doesn’t make sense

      • Rosko

        Most popular in vr terms probably = about 10 people.

        • Bullshit.
          Most popular means ten thousands active players.
          The reason why the shut down, because the game is free and don’t make almost any money.
          They are just greedy, and they want to force the Quest userbase to spent money in other games.

          • ViRGiN

            No, it’s because your mom.

        • Guest

          How many people play Echo VR?
          There are currently 5986 active players in teams.

      • ViRGiN

        That’s how internet based games behave. Tons of gaming companies shut down their servers for certain games.

        • Guest

          Yeah, these people are so naive. These companies do this to force their developers onto other projects and herd their user base onto other games. Not as big a fail as one company that killed VR for AR that went nowhere!

  • alxslr

    Clever decission. I wonder which will be the next one.

    Really hope Meta survives enough months to ship Q3, they seem to be trying hard to sabotage themselves.

  • 100% lunacy, even running basic servers so people can still play it with no more updates can’t be costing Meta that much in terms of overall figures. This is lame to the utmost degree.

  • Ugg, yet another Meta rug pull. Maybe it’s just me, but I feel like from an ethics point of view, online games like this need to think about the off ramp of development at the start of the process. You need to be ready to hand off the reigns once a community has established itself and you’re no longer willing to do the upkeep.

    • ViRGiN

      Don’t ever get into games that don’t have dedicated servers separate from game master servers.
      That leaves you with options to play nothing in current times.

      But sure, go ahead and act all entitled about free game cause Meta.

      • “That leaves you with options to play nothing in current times.” Yeah, and that’s pretty fucked up, especially with a VR game with a big social aspect. I don’t think companies deserve immunity from scrutiny just because they offer a free option.

      • Echo combat wasn’t free. It was definitely cheap though.

  • Yeshaya

    I assume this means even offline only play won’t be available, right?

  • Stu Woody

    Just another reason my next headset, replacing my old Rift S, will absolutely, positively, and unequivocally NOT be a Meta device. The Quest route showed they’d rather create VR Candy Crush than leverage immersive high-end solutions. Secondly; content that’s Quest only ? No reason at-all content for this isn’t perfectly suitable for a Rift S, other than snide underhanded tactics to de-value their older and better headset. Just waiting for whatever next gen device ticks all the boxes. I just know Meta won’t be on the list

    • ViRGiN

      i’m sure you will pick the imaginary valve headset, as valve is complete opposite of “route showed they’d rather create VR Candy Crush than leverage immersive high-end solutions” by creating bodyless , 3 guns strong half life alyx several years ago.

      • Marc Mañas Sebastià

        PSVR2 have a brilliant future. the only problem is $$$ and u need a ps5

  • Tommy

    HUGE mistake!
    This is one of the best VR games out there and one I still play very regularly. What are they thinking?!

  • Ookami

    In an AMA Bozworth admits that killing Echo VR was his decision. This means Meta is to blame, not the developers. It shows a complete disregard for the community from high-up, which is not a good sign. So much for their “commitment to supporting live-service games like EchoVR”.
    Honestly this is just sad

    • ViRGiN

      cope. and who is to blame for onward demise? also not developers cause they got fired after years long holidays?

      • Ookami

        Two completely separate events. Stop deflecting. It just makes you look desperate.

        • ViRGiN

          so u’re unable to cope, cause u liked echo more than onward.
          go play some latest steamvr sales. there has been a bunch of games more popular than gorilla tag on pcvr. all because of less than a dollar admittance price.

          • Ookami

            LOL stop being so desperate man.

          • ViRGiN

            Stop deflecting. It just makes you look desperate.

          • Ookami

            LOL you do know repeating other people doesn’t work if it doesn’t make sense in the context of when you do it, right?

          • ViRGiN

            Two completely separate events.

          • Ookami

            LOL wut

  • ViRGiN

    Only a total idiot like me would defend Meta.

    • Ready Player112

      Anyone ever tell you that you talk too much?

  • Krystalmyth

    It’s SO UNFAIR! I love this game so much and it can’t cost them so much just to host the servers! There are so many people who love the game. It’s barely been three years!! We all bought into the Quest during the pandemic, and fell in love with this game and its community and now you’re going to tear us apart?! Why? Sorry it’s just so upsetting.

  • aslam

    Amazing, this is great as you want to learn more, I invite to This is my page.

  • Wow, a game mode that nobody played because it never came to Quest is now free on a game that Meta is forcing to die? What would the point even be?

  • ViRGiN

    btw i love how there has been virtually ZERO backlash about much cockier move from valve – stopping support for windows 7. lmao! oh, you can just buy a brand new computer and continue playing your 15 year old games! nothing like quest 1 that got “abandoned” after a year!

  • ViRGiN

    So you do care.

    • Ookami

      What. Feeling touched?

  • Bruce

    It’s not a great plan to shut down game 1 before launching game 2. I never went back to orbus because they shut the servers for a month, between orbus and orbus reborn.