Google thanks Stadia players by releasing the “humble title” it used to test Stadia’s features

Surprise, Stadia players! Google released Worm Game, a game that “came to Stadia before Stadia was born.”

The multiplayer arcade title became available overnightjust days before Google’s innovative cloud gaming service will be permanently retired on January 18, 2023.

In a bittersweet twist, this means Worm Game is both the last game to be released on the service and the first, as it was used to test features prior to Stadia’s launch in 2019 until last year.

“Play the game that came to Stadia before Stadia was born,” Google writes in the store description. “Worm Game is a modest title that we used to test many features of Stadia, starting well before our public launch in 2019 and ending in 2022.

“It won’t win game of the year, but the Stadia team spent a lot of time playing it and we thought we’d share it with you guys. Thanks for playing and for everything.”

“Stadia is not shutting down,” Google insisted when asked directly on Twitter if the shutdown was imminent as early as June. Just three months later, the struggling cloud gaming service announced that it would close on January 18, 2023 – news that even developers still working hard on Google Stadia projects weren’t expecting.

Stadia is currently refunding those who made their hardware purchases through the Google Store. Stadia is also attempting to automatically process refunds for “all game purchases, add-on content, and subscription fees other than Stadia Pro” through the Stadia Store and expects to process the majority of refunds by January 18, 2023.