Stadia's collapse means the exclusive horror game Gylt will finally release for the rest of us

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Gylt was a Stadia launch title when it came out in 2019 and has remained exclusive to the platform.

Gylt
(Image credit: Tequila Works)

Remember Gylt? Perfectly fair if you don't: It's a singleplayer action-adventure horror game created by Rime studio Tequila Works, and it released in 2019 as a Google Stadia exclusive. And so it remained, despite some rumbling from the developers about going multiplatform. But the looming collapse of Stadia means it's finally going to happen—eventually.

"Spooky season is around the corner… And we bring terrific news!" the studio announced (via Eurogamer). "We’ve been working on it for a long time and it’s finally time to make it official: GYLT is going multiplatform in 2023!"

It is admittedly not the most detailed announcement of all time, but I think the Gylt situation overall kind of encapsulates Stadia's biggest problem: Despite being a platform exclusive from a reputable indie studio, it had very little exposure or visibility, and went largely unnoticed at a time when people were leaning heavily into at-home entertainment (like playing videogames) because of the pandemic. Gylt owners aren't going to take a financial hit from the Stadia shutdown because Google is offering refunds across the board, but it's obviously a problem for anyone who wants to keep on (or start) playing—and it's not great for Tequila Works, either.

Stadia's coming shutdown—it's going away for good in January—has left a number of developers looking for new homes for their games. Prior to the Tequila Works announcement, Ubisoft, IO Interactive, and Bungie said that they're also looking into other options for their players. For developers with products on the verge of being released, though, it was an even more unpleasant shock: Mike Rose of No More Robots, for instance, said the studio had a game slated to launch on Stadia in November and expressed concerns about possibly not being paid because the platform is disappearing. "To all the people who kept begging us 'PLEASE BRING YOUR GAMES TO STADIA'—this is why we didn't," he tweeted.

Splash Damage, which released the eight-player party shooter Outcasters as a Stadia exclusive in 2020, suggested that it could make a similar move, although it hasn't committed yet, saying only that "we need to take a couple of days to evaluate the options for Outcasters moving forward."

Andy Chalk
Andy Chalk
US News Lead

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.