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Facebook has promised that the aspects of Beat Saber that the gaming community loved will remain intact, with the studio maintaining its existing HQ in Prague.
On Tuesday (26 November), Facebook announced that it is acquiring Beat Games, the VR company behind the hit game Beat Saber.
Released in 2018, the game sat on Steam’s VR best-seller list for months before it was launched on PlayStation 4 towards the end of the year.
Often described as a convergence of Star Wars and Guitar Hero, Beat Saber won the accolade of fan favourite VR game at the Gamers’ Choice Awards last year. Since then, it has scooped numerous other awards in the UK, Europe and the US.
Before the deal with Facebook, Beat Games had not raised any venture capital.
Facebook is now buying Beat Games and incorporating the company into its VR gaming group, Oculus Studios. The Czech gaming company will continue to operate from its studio in Prague.
In a statement, Oculus Studios director of content, Mike Verdu said: “What the community has come to love about Beat Saber will remain intact. Beat Games will continue to ship content and updates for Beat Saber across all currently supported platforms, now with even more support from Facebook.
“Beat Games’ accomplishments are already impressive, but Facebook and the Beat Games team know that there is so much more that can be done across VR, games and music.
“They have only scratched the surface with Beat Saber in terms of social features, new modes, music and more. We are thrilled to join forces to see where this talented team takes VR gaming in the future.”
Facebook published a series of questions and answers in an attempt to reassure Beat Saber fans that there shouldn’t be too many major changes following the acquisition.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed. This is Facebook’s second major AR/VR acquisition recently, following the purchase of neural interface software firm CTRL-Labs back in September.
