Thursday, February 23, 2023

Google Stadia Exclusive Game Availability

Since Google's ill-fated game streaming service shut down on the 18th of January, I thought I'd do a list of the availability of Stadia's exclusive games in the same manner that I listed the Telltale game availability after the collapse of the original Telltale Games.

Gunsport, an action volleyball game by Necrosoft, is available for Windows in an offline version via the Steam beta channel of its sequel, Hyper Gunsport. A video on Twitter shows how to activate the original game.

Gylt, a horror adventure game by Tequila Works, will be coming to multiple platforms in 2023.

Hello Engineer, a racing and vehicle creation game by tinyBuild, will be released on Steam in 2023. 

PixelJunk Raiders, a space exploration roguelike by Q-Games, has an unknown future. In an interview with The Verge, the founder and CEO of Q-Games stated intentions to bring Pixeljunk Raiders to other platforms, but a publisher is needed to help with the costs of doing so.

Pac-Man Mega Tunnel Battle, a sixty-four-player battle royal by Heavy Iron Studios, has not had any updates about its future. However, this is Pac-Man we're talking about. I'd be really surprised if Bandai Namco doesn't re-release it in some form at some point in the future. 

Outcasters, a multiplayer shooter by Splash Damage, sadly looks like it will be lost to history. Splash Damage tweeted that it would be difficult to port to another platform because its features are too tightly integrated into Stadia's infrastructure.

Worm Game, Google's multiplayer take on the Snake game, was released as a surprise just before the service shutdown. Since this was the game Google used to test the Stadia platform, this one is also likely going to be lost forever.

Luckily the Stadia exclusive game list is short. One game is already available outside of Stadia, two games are coming to one or more platforms soon, two have uncertain futures, and two are likely going to be lost forever. As someone who is involved in video game preservation, those last two hurt. 

I'll update this list if anything changes.

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