Every Google Stadia Exclusive That Could Disappear Soon

Image: Q-Games/Google

Earlier today, Google has confirmed the closure of Stadia, its short-lived cloud gaming service. While the company plans to refund all Stadia-related software and hardware purchases, the future of the few remaining exclusives on the service is less clear. And if they’re not ported to other platforms before Stadia heads into the sunset next year, they could disappear altogether, never to be played again.

When Google Stadia launched in late 2019, the search engine company had big plans, promising exclusive games that would utilize features only possible through cloud streaming and offsite computing. In the years since, Google has shifted its focus away from Stadia exclusives, even shutting down its own game studio in the process. However, a few exclusive games remain stuck on Stadiums. And with today’s sudden news that Stadia will be permanently shutting down on January 18, 2023, we don’t know what will happen to those games. At a time a blog post announcing the closure and a FAQ on the situationGoogle hasn’t said what the future holds for the few remaining Stadia exclusives.

Kotaku has reached out to Google about these games and will update the post if they share any new details or plans with us.

According to our tally, there are five games that can only be played through Google Stadia. Here is the list :

Hello engineer

TinyBuild

Releasing in October 2021, this is the latest exclusive on the list. Hello engineer is described by the developers as a “multiplayer machine-building game” and is set in the same universe as the popular horror game, Hello Neighbor.

Pixel Junk Raiders

Q-Games

This is a badly rated third person roguelike action game by the people of Q-Games, the same developers who created The Tomorrow Children and the other PixelJunk games.) It has a cool feature where players can share a screenshot and others can jump into that in-game state using just that image. But the rest of the game looks a bit lackluster.

Outcasts

Splash damage

Developed by Splash Damage, Outcasters is a top-down online multiplayer fighting game which features characters who appear to have fallen from a Fall Guys knockoff. While some gamers had good things to say about Outcasters, it didn’t find the audience it needed even after going free-to-play, and it seems these days it’s mostly a city phantom.

PAC-MAN Mega Tunnel Battle

bandai namco

Released in 2020, Mega tunnel battle combines the classic Pac-Man arcade game with a battle royale. Up to 64 players can play together, competing to be the last Pac-Man standing while using a mix of new and old powerups on retro-inspired maps.

GYLT

tequilla works

GYLT is a third-person horror game starring a young girl and is considered by many Stadia fans to be perhaps the best exclusive game released on the service. It was developed by Tequilla Works and is around six hours long, filled with decent jumps, puzzles, and combat. Nothing super special, but a solid game that will hopefully be ported to Steam or Switch for more people to enjoy. GYLT for the coming years.

While some of these games aren’t amazing and I doubt many people would care if they could never play them again, losing them would still be a shame. The preservation of video games is important if we want record the history of this art form and show how it has evolved and changed over decades of innovation and new technology. Losing these games in a vacuum, even if some of them aren’t that great, would suck.

Hopefully the developers and publishers involved can and will port them to other platforms. If that doesn’t happen, they’ll die forever when Google kills Stadia servers, because even hackers couldn’t extract and share online games. A sad ending for games that people have probably spent years working on.