author: Adrian Piotrowski
Google Rumored to Have Canceled Several Emerging Stadia Games
Google has canceled a number of games over the past year that were due to appear on the Stadia streaming platform. Among them were Hideo Kojima's horror game, an action game by a former Ubisoft employee, and a sequel to Journey to the Savage Planet.
More news regarding Google Stadia. Yesterday, we wrote about the alleged reasons behind the failure of the streaming platform and why, according to former and current employees, Google's plan to create its own games failed. Today, Video Games Chronicles published an article by Andy Robinson, who focused on the company's canceled projects in various stages of development. His text is a collection of information from people who know Google's plans.
Several interesting devs passed through the company, includingHideo Kojima. In May last year, also on VGC, the dev of Death Stranding said that one of his projects was canceled. It was probably the exclusive Google Stadia game. Robinson claims that the work of the Japanese developer would have been a horror game released in episodes. Kojima Productions had a plan to develop innovative gameplay using Google's Cloud, but the deal was scrapped by the company's VP Phil Harrison. Another developer who was offered a collaboration was Yu Suzuki, best known for the Shenmue series.
One of the canceled things was a multiplayer action game with the working title Frontier. The team in charge of game was headed by Francois Pelland, a former Ubisoft employee who was involved in the development of Assassin's Creed: Syndicate and South Park: The Fractured but Whole, among others. Developers were surprised by the company's decision, because they learned about the cancelation of the project from the Internet.
The same situation happened to the members of Typhoon Studios, who were hired by Google in 2019 and were responsible for the co-op adventure game Journey to the Savage Planet. The developers were in the process of working on a sequel that would feature fully animated cutscenes and be a larger game than the original.
The situation of Harmonix, a studio that creates music games, known for such series as Rock Band, Dance Central and the first two installment of Guitar Hero, is slightly better. Another title from this genre was to appear on Stadia. Sources claim that the game is already practically finished, and problems related to licensing agreements stand in the way of the release. However, the report was denied by the head of Harmonix - Steve Janiak. He told VGC that there are no problems with the game and if necessary, it will be released on a platform other than Stadia.
Google Stadia's announcement:
In light of these revelations, the company decided to take the floor. A spokesperson for Google Stadia announced in a statement for GamesRadar that Robinson's article contains untruths and attempts to present rumors as facts. The piece in question is about Kojima and Suzuki's projects. The company denied that it had any established agreement with any of the devs, although, on the other hand, it admitted that it is in talks with many business partners, which do not necessarily end up in cooperation.
