Stadia Exclusive Outcasters No Longer Published By Google

Stadia exclusive Outcasters is still a Stadia exclusive, but it's no longer published by Google. Stadia players received a strange email a few days ago informing them of the change, stating that Outcasters is now published by Warchest, the publishing arm of Outcasters developer Splash Damage.

"Starting on 31 May 2021, the publisher of Outcasters will change from Google LLC to Warchest Ltd. and the Warchest Terms of Service and Privacy Policy will apply," the email reads. "Please take a look at both documents. Nothing else is changing--you can still play the game on Stadia just like before."

While this move hasn't yet had an impact on Stadia customers, it's an unusual step in the world of games, where publishers typically fight to hold onto valuable intellectual property. Then again, it's not exactly surprising to Stadia observers, since Google as a company has seemingly moved away from internal game development for the streaming service in recent months.

Back in February, the company shut down its first-party game studios, resulting in a loss of 150 jobs, including big names like Jade Raymond. Later that month, however, Google published a blog post that stated that "more than 100 games" are coming to the Stadia storefront in 2021, so it isn't abandoning publishing third-party games on the service. Regardless of Google's ambitions for Stadia, Outcasters fans can at least keep playing the game, which is more that can be said for other multiplayer shooters like Battleborn, so perhaps this is a win after all.