Google Stadia is changing course The company announced today that it will close its Los Angeles and Montreal studios Jade Raymond, creator of Assassin's Creed, will also be leaving the company

According to sources close to Kotaku, most games scheduled for release after 2021 have been canceled

Raymond, who was the creative head of the Assassin's Creed franchise at Ubisoft, has been hired by Google as VP of Games & Entertainment Phil Harrison, GM and VP of Stadium, will remain

"It takes a long time and a significant investment to build a best-in-class game from the ground up, and the costs are rising exponentially," Harrison said in Stadia's announcement

"Because of our focus on deepening business partnerships based on Stadia's proven technology, we have decided not to invest any further in providing exclusive content from our in-house development team, SG&E, beyond the games we have planned for the near future

Harrison has had an illustrious career in the gaming industry, having held executive positions at Microsoft, Sony, and Atari, which he founded in 2009 No wonder Google sought him out

Stadia aims to push the technology along with other companies by making its infrastructure the backbone of other game publishers

"We are committed to the future of cloud gaming and will continue to do our part to move this industry forward," Harrison said

"Our goal is to continue to focus on creating the best possible platform for gamers and technology for our partners to bring these experiences to people around the world"

While this may be a minor setback for Stadia, the company still has plans to leverage its power in the game streaming arena Already Stadia has proven to be one of the best places to play the computationally intensive Cyberpunk 2077

Exclusive games made by Google are currently off the table, but the company has the funds to sign exclusive publishing deals with major studios And with Microsoft stepping up its studio acquisitions, the game competition is likely to heat up even more