I investigated and found my own temp-fix. It seems the final solution is to enable the open VR plugin through Oculus (still doing research about this).
Oculus forum post about the solution: Unreal Engine 4.22 fatal error at launching startu... - Oculus Community - 694641
My specific issue was related to downloading of the release candidate build using a test user.
*Temp fix: During the submission process using the oculus platform utility (UploadBuild.bat), many files are not allowed and prompted for removal. The openvr_api.dll file was one of them. This file needs to be added back, in order for the game to run: Open Unreal FrontEnd, create a new packaged shipping build in a different folder (I.e. “_test”) from the final build>copy the Open VR folder & contents to the app’s installed location (ex: X:\GamesX\Oculus\Software\modogma-mod-haus\MOD_Haus\WindowsNoEditor\Engine\Binaries\ThirdParty\OpenVR)>re-run the app from the Oculus app