VR developer First Contact closes down

First Contact Entertainment shut down before the holiday break.

Per community lead Frank Marmolino, the LA-based studio has closed its doors after nearly seven years. His post was later corroborated by other ex-staffers at the studio, which employed 30-40 people.

"Some sad news to share today," he wrote on December 21. "After nearly six years with the amazing folks at [First Contact], the company will be shutting down."

On its Facebook page, it said the "lack of support for VR within the industry has eventually taken its toll. As a triple-A VR [dev], we are just not able to justify the expense needed going forward."

Founded in 2016, First Contact was a studio that specialized in VR games. Its debut title was Rom Extraction for the Oculus and Vive headsets.

More recently, the studio's more recent games were the multiplayer Firewall titles. Firewall Zero Hour released for the original PlayStation VR in 2018, and its sequel, Firewall Ultra, came to PSVR2 this past August.

This marks the second Christmas closure of the year, and precedes the shut down on indie developer Versus Evil the following day.