Google Stadia Launches Final Game 5 Days Before Shutting Down; Gives Controller Bluetooth Support

Just 5 days until retirement

It may just be pathos, but though Google Stadia is about to head off into the sunset, it still has one last game to drop… a whole 5 days before it goes the way of the dodo all other unsuccessful Google products.

In a fitting twist, the last Stadia game is technically one of the first. Worm Game was one of the games available on Stadia before its public launch back in November 2019. Google’s developers took a “smoke ’em if you got ’em” mentality and shot the game out onto the doomed Stadia service. From the listing:

Play the game that came to Stadia before Stadia came to the world. “Worm Game” is a humble title we used to test many of Stadia’s features, starting well before our 2019 public launch, right through 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. Thanks for playing, and for everything.

That’s not all. Coming next week is a self-serve tool allowing users to unlock the Bluetooth functionality for the Stadia controller.

In addition, many of you have expressed the desire to enable Bluetooth on the Stadia controller. We have some good news: next week we’ll be releasing a self-serve tool to enable Bluetooth connections on your Stadia Controller. We’ll share details next week on how to enable this feature.

Community Manager DanFromGoogle

This is significant, as the controller was previously locked to Stadia services. Since the announcement of the shutdown, fans have been searching for ways to save the controller from becoming e-waste. They did find workarounds, such as connecting it to an Android device. That will no longer be necessary; meaning those that bought one of the bundles that included a Stadia controller effectively have a free Bluetooth controller. Albeit, one that people had issues with (the d-pad is apparently crap, but that’s no surprise), but still.

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Google Stadia will shut down on January 18th at 11:59PM PT / 2:59AM ET on January 19th. Google is refunding software, and even hardware, and those refunds are expected to be completed by the 18th.

Goodnight, sweet prince.

Source: The Verge

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B. Simmons

Based out of Glendale California, Bryan is a GAMbIT's resident gaming contributor. Specializing in PC and portable gaming, you can find Bryan on his 3DS playing Monster Hunter or at one of the various conventions throughout the state.

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