Yahoo Finance Google had to fix a broken Stadia game after laying off its developer
‘Journey to the Savage Planet’ was said to be unplayable on the platform.
Weeks after laying off the game’s developers, Google has fixed a critical bug in Journey to the Savage Planet on Stadia. The game was unplayable for some on the streaming platform, according to Eurogamer, as it was freezing on the main menu (though it worked when Engadget tested the issue). It arrived on Stadia at the start of February as a freebie for Stadia Pro subscribers.
A redditor sounded the alarm about the problem the day after Google said it would shut down its internal Stadia game development studios and end production of its first-party titles. It bought Journey to the Savage Planet developer Typhoon Studios in 2019 to bolster the team.
Stadia support told the redditor, u/lordubuntu, that 505 Games would handle the issue. The publisher brought Journey to the Savage Planet to other platforms, though Google published it on Stadia. According to 505 Games, it couldn't take care of the problem as Google owns all of the game code and data for the Stadia version.
A Stadia community manager named Grace responded to a Reddit thread on the matter on Monday evening. They apologized and said that Google is "actively working with our partners to identify a fix."
The Stadia team has since resolved the problem. "Hi everyone, this issue should now be resolved," Grace wrote in another thread at 11:47AM ET on Tuesday. "Thanks again for your patience, and please let us know if the issue persists on your end."
The incident was the latest instance of turbulence at Stadia. Along with closing its own game development studios, the service is facing a class-action lawsuit over claims that games don't run in true 4K on the platform as promised.
Update 2/23 12:20PM ET: Stadia has rolled out a patch to fix the bug.
