Google Buys Typhoon Studios for Its Stadia Cloud Gaming Service

Janko Roettgers

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Google is looking to grow the catalog of its Stadia cloud gaming service: The search giant has acquired Montreal-based game studio Typhon Studios, and will integrate it into its Stadia Games and Entertainment studio.

“We’re always looking for people who share our passion and vision for the future of gaming,” said Stadia Games and Entertainment vice president Jade Raymond in a blog post Thursday morning.

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Typhoon Studios was founded in early 2017 by game industry veterans including Yassine Riahi, who previously worked in technical leadership roles at Warner Bros. Games, THQ and EA, Reid Schneider, whose previously worked at WB, EA and Ubisoft, and Alex Hutchinson, who previously worked as creative director for Ubisoft and EA.

The studio’s first game, “Journey to the Savage Planet,” is scheduled to come out next month. Raymond said Thursday that the title would still be released for multiple platforms as planned. Going forward, the studio is expected to work on exclusives for Stadia.

Google launched Stadia as a cloud gaming service in November. The service renders video games in the cloud, doing away with the need for expensive game console hardware. Players can instead play Stadia games on Chromecast-equipped TVs, or on their mobile devices or laptops.

The search giant isn’t the only company looking to use this type of cloud architecture as a way to capture a slice of the video game market. Stadia is directly competing with Nvidia’s Geforce Now service, and may soon have another competitor: On Wednesday, Facebook announced that it had acquired Spanish cloud gaming service PlayGiga, which it is expected to use as the foundation for its own cloud gaming efforts.

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