Google has reportedly canceled the Stadia-exclusive Death Stranding sequel

Google has reportedly canceled a Death Stranding sequel that would have been exclusive to the platform.

One of Stadia’s main concerns was the fact that Google couldn’t afford big exclusives for its cloud gaming service, which will shut down in January. Of course, players can play Read Dead Redemption 2, Cyberpunk 2077, or Destiny 2, but these games are all available on other platforms. And it looks like Google itself sabotaged its chances of getting an exclusive title.

Google Reportedly Canceled Death Stranding Sequel

According to 9to5Google, at some point Hideo Kojima was working on a Stadia-exclusive sequel to his game Death Stranding, which launched on PlayStation in 2019 and then came to PC. Death Stranding has some asynchronous multiplayer elements. Other players can use ladders, roads, and other items you place in the world, for example. However, this sequel was supposed to be a single-player game, which was the reason for the cancellation of the Google project.

According to the report, Google scrapped the idea of ​​the game, which was described as a horror episode, after seeing the first mockups in 2020. In a May 2020 interview, Hideo Kojima stated that one of his projects was recently cancelled. Google would have abandoned this project, convinced that there was no more room in the market for single-player games.

which would be exclusive to the platform

The lack of major exclusives is far from the only problem that could explain the downfall of Stadia. A dubious business model and rather hasty exit didn’t help, as did Google’s reputation for ruthlessly killing its own products. Even though Stadia was built with great technology and had a rabid following, the platform never took off as much as Google had hoped it would. Stadia will close on January 18th and will refund the cost of hardware and purchases (excluding the Pro subscription). Ubisoft is working on a tool to allow players who bought their Stadia games to play them on PC.

However, no one knows if Google intends to reimburse the studios for certain expenses incurred. There is also uncertainty about keeping some independent games that are not found anywhere else. Some would also like to see Google unlock the Stadia Bluetooth controller’s features so it can be used with other platforms, but that’s unlikely to happen.

As for Hideo Kojima, he’s still working on a sequel to Death Stranding, according to gaming star Norman Reedus. He would turn to Xbox Game Studios for his next game. Therefore, it will run on Microsoft cloud technology.