[Update]: Following Stadia's shutdown, its first exclusive game Gylt is now heading to other platforms.

According to an announcement that came so suddenly not even the employees knew about it, Google is shutting down their game streaming service Stadia. The servers will be going down on January 18th, 2023, so even if you're halfway through a lengthy RPG you should have more than enough time to wrap things up.

Most importantly, all Stadia hardware purchases made through the Google Store, and all game and add-on content purchases made through the Stadia store will be refunded. The majority of these refunds will be completed by mid-January, though don't be too surprised if it takes a while longer for everything to get finalized.

"The underlying technology platform that powers Stadia has been proven at scale and transcends gaming," reads the brief update. "We see clear opportunities to apply this technology across other parts of Google like YouTube, Google Play, and our Augmented Reality (AR) efforts — as well as make it available to our industry partners, which aligns with where we see the future of gaming headed. We remain deeply committed to gaming, and we will continue to invest in new tools, technologies and platforms that power the success of developers, industry partners, cloud customers and creators."

"For the Stadia team, building and supporting Stadia from the ground up has been fueled by the same passion for games that our players have. Many of the Stadia team members will be carrying this work forward in other parts of the company. We’re so grateful for the groundbreaking work of the team and we look forward to continuing to have an impact across gaming and other industries using the foundational Stadia streaming technology."

Whether this means that Google is genuinely aiming to create another gaming service or if they're simply looking towards supporting others in their endeavors, only time will tell. Personally, I'm not too excited either way as Google has a long history of giving up on projects that aren't immediately successful, which in the volatile world of gaming is a bit of a problem. Still, I can't complain too much as Google did at least decide to refund everyone, so Stadia's shut down shouldn't sting as much as some of their previous projects.

Once Stadia closes down its doors and Google issues all of the aforementioned refunds, I'll make sure to let you know. Until then, you can read a little bit more about Stadia's future over at the Google website.