nDreams, the studio behind free-to-play arena shooter FRENZIES, announced that the game is heading out of early access later this year, although it won’t be coming to PSVR 2 as previously planned.
The studio released a statement, saying it has “other exciting PS VR2 announcements coming” in lieu of Frenzies coming to PSVR 2:
“We’re excited to confirm that FRENZIES will be free-to-play when it leaves Early Access later this year! Since the start of Early Access on Meta Quest, we’ve seen a fantastic response from players who love FRENZIES’ unique brand of chaos, and we want to make sure we’re able to build upon that when we move out of Early Access.
As we focus on delivering the best possible version of FRENZIES, we’ve made the tough to decision to concentrate our efforts on the Meta Quest release and will no longer be releasing FRENZIES on PS VR2. We know this will be disappointing news to those who were eagerly awaiting the PS VR2 release but rest assured, we have some other exciting PS VR2 announcements coming your way soon!
For now, get ready for more FRENZIES updates in the coming weeks as we roll out our Early Access roadmap.”
Released in early access on Quest 2 and above back in October 2024, Frenzies brings fast-paced arena shooting action along with an assortment of standard weapons and game modes—all of which is packaged into a surprisingly solid, VR-native gameplay experience.
While PSVR 2 players hoping to jump in at launch are likely disheartened, it makes a good deal of sense from the developer’s perspective for a few reasons.
Over the past year, Quest has seen a significant bump in younger users adopting the platform alongside the entrance of the $300 Quest 3S, which has also concordantly boosted free-to-play content on the platform.
“We expect free-to-play (F2P) to become a broadly viable strategy for developers, who up until now have relied almost exclusively on premium apps. But we don’t think F2P will replace premium apps — both models are likely to coexist,” Samantha Ryan, Meta VP of Metaverse Content, said in February.
There’s also an increasingly difficult economic environment to navigate. It’s likely nDreams is looking to maximize its return by appealing solely to its largest prospective player pool, as the UK-based studio recently condensed both its nDreams Studio Orbital and nDreams Studio into its new internal studio ‘Compass’ following a round of layoffs.
Still, as one of the most senior XR game studios out there, nDreams has developed and published a dizzying number of high-quality VR games, including Vendetta Forever, Power Wash Simulator VR, Ghostbusters: Rise of the Ghost Lord, Synapse, Fracked, Little Cities, and Phantom: Cover Ops to name a few.
