Google Stadia was reportedly in talks with Hideo Kojima about developing an episodic horror game for the streaming platform but backed out of the potentially lucrative deal ahead of its decision to escape from first-party game development entirely. The news comes from Video Games Chronicle, which published a report today revealing that Google’s decision to gut its internal development teams resulted in a wide range of canceled projects ranging from a Kojima Productions (Death Stranding) title to a new game from legendary Sega alumni Yu Suzuki (Out Run, Virtua Fighter). These also included a music game from Harmonix, the Boston-based studio behind Frequency and the Guitar Hero series.
“Among its numerous third-party licensing agreements, Stadia had been working with music game firm Harmonix on an original title that is virtually complete,” VGC reported. While the Harmonix game could yet release for Stadia, some sources said that complications around music licensing for Stadia’s Pro service had caused significant disruption behind the scenes, even before Google’s announcement this month.”
“The Kojima Productions project is understood to have been positioned as an episodic horror game. Sources indicated that the Japanese studio was keen to innovate in the cloud gaming space, but the deal was ultimately blocked by Stadia GM Phil Harrison last year.”
Owing credence to VGC’s report is a photo of ex-Stadia games boss Jade Raymond, who visited Kojima Productions in July 2019 to give a thumbs up alongside the Metal Gear and Policenauts mastermind himself. Google Stadia Vice President and GM Phil Harrison confirmed that he would be terminating Stadia’s internal game development teams and focusing on its future as a platform instead in a blog post published on February 1.
