Image: Q-Games / Google
Earlier at present, Google confirmed that its shutting down Stadia, its short-lived cloud gaming service. While the corporate plans on refunding all software program and {hardware} purchases associated to Stadia, the way forward for the few remaining exclusives on the service is much less clear. And in the event that they don’t get ported to different platforms earlier than Stadia rides into the sundown subsequent yr, they might fully disappear, by no means to be performed once more.
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When Google Stadia launched in late 2019, the search engine firm had huge plans, promising unique video games that may make the most of options solely potential by way of cloud streaming and off-site computing. In the years that adopted, Google would cease specializing in Stadia exclusives, even closing down its personal recreation studio within the course of. However, just a few unique video games stay stranded on Stadia. And with at present’s sudden information that Stadia is shutting down completely on January 18, 2023, we don’t know what’s going to occur to those video games. In each a weblog submit saying the shutdown and a FAQ concerning the state of affairs, Google didn’t make clear what’s the future for the few remaining Stadia exclusives.
Kotaku has contacted Google about these video games and can replace the submit if it shares any new particulars or plans with us.
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By our depend, there are 5 video games that may solely be performed by way of Google Stadia. Here’s the record:
Hello Engineer
tinyBuild
Released in October 2021, that is the latest unique on the record. Hello Engineer is described by the devs as a “multiplayer machinery-building construction game” and is about in the identical universe as the favored horror recreation, Hello Neighbor.
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Elgato Stream Deck MK.2
Fully customizable
There’s numerous cool stuff you may construct into your Twitch stream to offer it that skilled feeling from transitions and overlays to results and pop-up home windows and extra. The Elgato Stream Deck MK.2 has 15 totally different macro keys which might all be assigned to separate actions. The visible look of the buttons is all customizable with tons of further icons to suit your wants.
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PixelJunk Raiders
Q-Games
This is a poorly reviewed third-person roguelike motion recreation from the oldsters at Q-Games, the identical devs who made The Tomorrow Children and the opposite PixelJunk video games.) It does have a neat characteristic the place gamers can share a screenshot and others can hop into that recreation state utilizing simply that picture. But the remainder of the sport sounds type of boring.
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Outcasters
Splash Damage
Developed by Splash Damage, Outcasters is a top-down on-line multiplayer fight recreation that options characters that seem like they fell out of a Fall Guys knock-off. While some gamers had good issues to say about Outcasters, it hasn’t discovered the viewers it wanted, even after going free-to-play, and it feels like lately it’s principally a ghost city.
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PAC-MAN Mega Tunnel Battle
Bandai Namco
Released in 2020, Mega Tunnel Battle combines the traditional Pac-Man arcade recreation with a battle royale. Up to 64 gamers can play collectively, competing to be the final Pac-Man standing whereas utilizing a mixture of new and returning power-ups throughout retro-inspired maps.
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GYLT
Tequilla Works
GYLT is a third-person horror recreation starring a younger woman and is taken into account by many Stadia followers to probably be the perfect unique recreation launched on the service. It was developed by Tequilla Works and is about six hours lengthy, filled with some respectable leap scares, puzzles and fight. Nothing tremendous particular, however a stable recreation that can hopefully get ported to Steam or Switch so extra of us can take pleasure in GYLT for years to return.
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While a few of these video games aren’t unimaginable and I doubt many individuals would care in the event that they by no means received to play them once more, dropping them would nonetheless be a disgrace. Video recreation preservation is vital if we wish to save this artwork kind’s historical past and present the way it has advanced and adjusted over a long time of innovation and new know-how. Losing these video games to the void, even when a few of them aren’t all that nice, would suck.
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Hopefully, the devs and publishers concerned can and can port them to different platforms. If that doesn’t occur, they’ll die endlessly when Google kills the Stadia servers, as not even pirates had been in a position to rip and share the video games on-line. A tragic finish to video games that folks seemingly spent years engaged on.