Google Stadia may be shutting down in a matter of days, but that hasn’t stopped Google from releasing one last game for the ill-fated streaming device.
The Worms game, now available to play on Google Stadia, will look very familiar to anyone who owned a phone in the early 2000s. It’s essentially Snake, albeit with some modern flourishes like colorful visuals and multiple game modes.
If you put your Google Stadia subscription on hold until the last minute, you can check out Worm Game by visiting its Stadia page (opens in new tab), You can also try it for free, for three hours, with a Google Stadia trial.
You might have seen one last game on Stadia today. This is a humble 🧡 thank you 💜 for playing with our team. Find it here: https://t.co/PyAUH181v1January 13, 2023
However, don’t be too quick to think that Google released a Snake clone as a joke. The Worm game’s store page states that the game was used to test several features of Google Stadia, from its 2019 launch until its impending demise.
And as snakes love it, the Worms game is certainly more involved than booting up on your Nokia 3310 during a long car trip to Wales. It’s not much to write home about, but it’s at least an important footnote in the brief history of Google Stadia.
a fitting end?
Google Stadia shutting down on January 18 isn’t surprising. An oddball subscription model paired with inconsistent streaming quality left all but its staunchest supporters humming the device.
However, Stadia was not entirely without its triumphs. I’m a big fan of Google Stadia’s excellent controller, and now that Google has finally confirmed Bluetooth support, the pad has at least been given a new lease on life. At least for players who want to continue using it wirelessly on PC and hopefully beyond devices and consoles.
Unfortunately for Google, a handful of other streaming services like GeForce Now and Xbox Cloud Gaming have offered more attractive game libraries with better streaming quality. As a result, Stadia was never able to find a sizable and dedicated audience on PC, mobile, and consoles.
The streaming service isn’t exactly going out with a bang, but I certainly wouldn’t argue, as evidenced by the release of the Worms game. It’s a game that’s clearly important to the development of Google Stadia, however primitive and basic it is.
Whether Google eventually decides to throw its hat back into the game streaming ring remains to be seen. But if it does, the tech giant would do well to learn a lesson from the shortcomings of its first experiment.