You’ve probably heard of Google Stadia by now, but if you somehow haven’t, here’s the basic gist; Google’s servers take on all the heavy lifting of running games, allowing you to run demanding games at 4K and 60 FPS on almost any device, like your phone or your computer. Naturally, this sounds like it would revolutionize gaming, since it would nullify the need for expensive consoles or elaborate PC gaming rigs. You could play even the most demanding games out there without owning some sort of fitting hardware in order to do so. It sounds great, but considering the 12 games that have been revealed for the launch of Google Stadia on November 19th, we might need to tame our expectations a bit.
The twelve games that have been revealed for Stadia’s launch lineup are as follows:
- Assassin’s Creed Odyssey
- Destiny 2: The Collection
- GYLT
- Just Dance 2020
- Kine
- Mortal Kombat 11
- Red Dead Redemption 2
- Thumper
- Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition
- Rise of the Tomb Raider
- Shadow of the Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition
- Samurai Showdown
As you may not be familiar with all of the games above, the general truths about them is this; many of them aren’t all that demanding to run, and most of them aren’t even new games. Some are as old as 2014, which kind of defeats the purpose Stadia was designed to fill. It’s a bit of a letdown for everyone that was expecting more of Google’s first foray into video game streaming.
Of course, it’s not entirely bad; Red Dead Redemption 2 was just recently released on PC, and it is noteworthy for requiring a pretty powerful setup to run at its highest FPS and graphical quality.
That said, it’s not like these 12 games are the only ones that are going to be available on Stadia; these are just the launch titles. More will be added later; in fact, Google has announced the inclusion of plenty of other games, all of which will be arriving before 2019 ends. This includes; Attack on Titan 2: Final Battle, Darksiders: Genesis, Borderlands 3, Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2, Rage 2, Farming Simulator 19, Final Fantasy XV, Wolfenstein: Youngblood, Ghost Recon Breakpoint, Metro: Exodus: Grid, NBA 2K 2020, and Trials Rising.
Of course, similar to the games announced for its launch, you will note that many of these titles aren’t particularly demanding or new, even though a few of them are. It’s also a bit disappointing that we aren’t going to see some of the other major releases of 2019 available, such as the soon to be released Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order or the newest Call of Duty.
Ultimately, we’re all hoping that the Stadia lineup becomes a bit more impressive as the platform carries on, but admittedly, the launch lineup and the games that will be released later are still pretty nice since you’ll be able to play those games on platforms you never could previously. Even if we are a little disappointed, there’s no doubt that Stadia is still going to make a big impact on gaming as a whole.
