Before Google closed down the division in 2021, Stadia Games and Entertainment turned down the opportunity to have an exclusive follow-up to Hideo Koj

Source: Stadia turned down an exclusive Death Stranding follow-up from Kojima

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2022-10-02 10:00:48

Before Google closed down the division in 2021, Stadia Games and Entertainment turned down the opportunity to have an exclusive follow-up to Hideo Kojima’s Death Stranding.

When Stadia was first announced in 2019, Google did so with aplomb, showcasing a grand vision for what cloud streaming technology could enable, with ideas like Stream Connect to instantly view your teammates’ gameplay. Rather than relying on third-party companies to see the merits of these ideas, Google formed Stadia Games & Entertainment — headed up by industry veteran Jade Raymond — to create experiences that could only be possible on Stadia.

A little over a year into Stadia’s existence, however, with the service reportedly missing user targets by “hundreds of thousands,” Google began winding down the Stadia Games and Entertainment division. Before that shutdown, Google was working with quite a few well known developers in the gaming industry to craft Stadia exclusive titles.

Some companies like Harmonix had been publicly confirmed to be working on Stadia titles while names like Yu Suzuki and Hideo Kojima were reported after the fact. These efforts were presumed to result in second-party titles published by Stadia Games & Entertainment, as opposed to the in-house games being developed by Shannon Studstill’s team and Google’s Star Labs.