A week before its launch, Google has announced the games that will be available on Stadia from launch day, and they include Assassin's Creed Odyssey, Destiny 2, and Red Dead Redemption 2.
Arriving November 19th, Google's upcoming cloud gaming service Stadia will launch with 12 games that Google describes as 'carefully chosen' with a further 14 set to be made available by the end of the year.
The launch list includes:
That's not a bad bunch at all. In particular, Red Dead Redemption 2 should delight mostly anyone, and Assassin's Creed Odyssey is one of the best Assassin's Creed games in recent times. Family fare like Just Dance 2020, along with indie puzzler and Stadia-exclusive GYLT keep things varied as well. And, of course, if you're a big Tomb Raider fan who somehow hasn't played any of them in recent times, you're going to be ecstatic. Thumper is an underrated delight too, although it's rarely hard to find on sale somewhere.
Odds are that if you're an avid gamer, you've probably played many of these before, but it's a decent beginning for Stadia if you're going in cold.
The company has also announced which games are slated to release before the end of the year, although there are no exact release dates for any of this lot:
So, another mixed bag but not a bad start, even if a few of the games aren't particularly recent any more.
For those not in the know, Stadia is a new(-ish) way of gaming whereby games are streamed rather than reliant on the hardware you have at home, thereby allowing you to play games through your TV, laptop, mobile phone, or tablet - without worrying about hardware restrictions. 'Netflix for games' sums it up nicely. That sounds liberating, but it means it's heavily dependent instead on the speed and reliability of your internet connection, as even a single lag spike is likely to result in very perceptible input lag.
It'll be interesting to see next week just how well it performs. Google has previously stated it's been working hard on making its games more responsive than local ones. Previous experiments such as OnLive haven't been so successful, but hey, if anyone can make it work, it's probably Google.
More information on Google's Stadia is available on the official website.
October 14 2021 | 15:04
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