You know, for a company as influential and successful as Google, you would think that Google Stadia wouldn’t have turned out to be disastrous and short-lived as it was, and yet here we are. Last year we spoke about Google Stadia announcing that it would shut down in 2023, and D-Day is officially upon us.
On January 18th 2023, Google Stadia will cease to be. Adopters of the service will lose access to all their games and their saved files – a bitter pill to swallow even if you didn’t often use the service.
However, a couple of publishers have gone out of their way to try and ease the pain for players by creating pathways for players to bring their games and progress to other platforms. Here are a few of the games that can be ported over:
All the PC Compatible Ubisoft games
Ubisoft has stepped up here and is giving away free versions of any PC-compatible Ubisoft games owned on Google Stadia. To claim these titles, you’d have to link your Ubisoft and Stadia accounts before the January 18th shutdown. Ubisoft has also announced that your progress in these games will also carry over to PC.
The Elder Scrolls Online
Do you know what would kill my soul? Having to start my Elder Scrolls Online account from scratch. There are hours of blood, sweat and tears that I don’t have the energy to pour into the title from scratch again. Thankfully if you played The Elder Scrolls Online on Google Stadia, all you would need to do is log into your Elder Scrolls Online account on Bethesda’s website and then download and play the game on PC and Mac to continue from right where you left off. No harm, no foul.
Hitman 3
IO Interactive, the developers behind Hitman 3, are letting players opt into a one-time “Stadia Progression Carryover” to see all progressions moved over to PC, PlayStation or Xbox. All players would need to do is link their IO account to their Stadia account before the big shutdown.
Cyberpunk 2077
Suppose you, for some reason, feel like carrying your progressions from the most disappointing game ever from Google Stadia to PC. In that case, you will have to do it before the shutdown. And as is customary for Cyberpunk 2077, linking your saved files across will be more challenging than linking your accounts like the other games and publishers have managed to do. No, instead, players will need to bring their data across manually. Yup. To do this, players will need to use Google Takeout and take to Google if they need help with the process. Cyberpunk 2077 is the gift that keeps giving.
Finally, Google is also running a refund system for all software purchases from the Stadia Store and hardware purchases from the Google Store. The company has said they began to process these refunds in November and expect most restitution to be handled by the 18th of January. If this applies to you, keep an eye on your emails.