Less than a week before the shutdown of Google Stadia, one final exclusive for the platform has been released. Only a handful of exclusives ever came to Stadia, some of which will not be leaving the service before its shutdown.Stadia is Google's soon-to-be-defunct game streaming service that launched in late 2019 to mixed reception. As Google's answer to the rise of game streaming, it allowed users to play games streamed online to their devices. It was similar in structure to services like Amazon Luna or Xbox Cloud Gaming, but never quite reached the levels of success that were anticipated of it. This past September, it was announced that Google was closing doors on the service in January 2023 and began processing Stadia refunds soon after.As one would expect, it has been mostly quiet on the release front for Stadia since the announcement of its shutdown, but a surprise reveal from the Stadia team broke the silence. The Google Stadia Twitter account announced the release of the Snake-like title Worm Game on January 13, likely to be the last game to release on Stadia. While some Stadia exclusives were announced for other platforms, it appears that Worm Game will only be available to play until January 18, 2023, 11:59 PST.
The Stadia page for Worm Game explains that the "humble title" was used internally during the development of Stadia for testing purposes and remained in use since. It was only ever meant to be seen and played among the team but has been released less than five days before the service's end as a thank you to users. Gamers can still play the game for free for up to 180 minutes using either a keyboard, Stadia controller, or other gamepads. Stadia fans gathered in the replies of the announcement with bittersweet remorse that the last dance of the service would be something that's been with Stadia since long before its 2019 launch.
Google Stadia never quite met the expectations that many believed it would, but it still had a passionate base of fans. There were plenty of gamers who found value in what Stadia had to offer, a famous example being the Red Dead Online player who had over 6,000 hours on Stadia. Google Stadia won't be missed by most, but it will leave as a major stepping stone in the history of game streaming that future cloud gaming developers should never forget.
Worm Game is available on Stadia until Stadia’s closure on January 18, 2023.
Source: Stadia