nDreams Near Light and nDreams Compass will be shut down as part of the restructuring.
Veteran developer nDreams has announced another mass restructuring that will result in two of its three studios shutting down and a staff reduction of up to seventy-eight employees at all levels, ‘including senior leadership.’ This is the troubled studio’s third round of layoffs, following similar restructurings in 2024 and 2025. nDreams Compass and nDreams Near Light will be closed with nDreams Elevation remaining as the core business focus moving forward.
nDreams Closes Two Internal VR Studios But Opens A New One Called Compass
nDreams has closed two studios as part of its ongoing restructuring program, bringing 40 staff members into its new ‘Compass’ studio.
nDreams Compass was formed when two previous studios, nDreams Studio Orbital and nDreams Studio, were both shut down. Forty members from those two teams combined to form Compass, with the remaining staff being laid off. Compass’s focus was the emerging market of younger VR users, powered by the success of free to play titles like Gorilla Tag. Compass’s debut title, Wreckin’ Raccoon, a chaotic sandbox experience in the vein of games like I Am Cat, released on Meta Quest in September 2025.
nDreams Near Light’s most recent title was Frenzies, a free to play arena shooter that released in Early Access on Quest in October 2024. A planned PlayStation VR2 port was canceled in 2025. It also released Top Hat, a world in Meta’s Horizon Worlds in March 2025.
nDreams Elevation, the remaining studio, was first formed in 2022 to focus on high fidelity, AAA-level VR games. Its most recent title was Reach, a cinematic action adventure game plagued by unfortunate PC VR compatibility issues and reports of players getting soft locked and unable to complete the game. The official statement says Elevation currently has around one hundred twenty staff working on various projects.
nDreams is owned by parent company Aonic, who purchased the company for $110 million in 2023.
