Skip navigation (Press enter)

Google Stadia shutting down, full refunds coming to Siege & Extraction owners

Google Stadia was one of seven platforms Rainbow Six Siege was available on.

Image: Ubisoft

The Google Stadia cloud gaming service, which allowed players to play a game off of an external computer and stream it to a device of your choice, is officially shutting down.

With it, Google has announced that they are refunding all "game and add-on content purchases made through the Stadia store" as well as "hardware purchases made through the Google Store".

This means any Rainbow Six Siege and Rainbow Six Extraction players who uses Stadia will be unable to do so after Jan. 18, 2023, but will be getting a full refund of money spent through their native store. The refund process will depend on the country of origin and physical items won't need to be returned. More information can be found here.

With cross-progression reportedly coming to Siege at the end of Year 7 (so in November), this could mean that people who have bought in-game skins over the Stadia store could get a refund for them while still being able to use them on PC or Console. This has not yet been confirmed, however.

While Google Stadia was claimed to be the future of gaming on launch in 2019, it failed to catch on due to the high internet speeds required to stream a game without lag. 

This was particularly an issue regarding multiplayer games where ping is extremely important. 

In June of 2021, just last year, Rainbow Six was released on the Stadia and had crossplay on launch with PC and Amazon Luna, Amazon's cloud gaming service. Without crossplay, it is likely no one would be able to find a matchup due to low player counts. 

Now Stadia is shutting down operations during a period of cost-cutting at the company explicitly because "it hasn't gained the traction with users that [Google] expected", possibly separating a small number of Rainbow Six players away from a game they've sunk hundreds of hours into.

SiegeGG is supported by its audience. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Learn more about how readers support SiegeGG.