70 TECH ADVISOR • APRIL 2020REVIEW
Stadia but it’s a sandboxed version of the game that
only exists for Stadia players.
It’s no wonder Google’s gave away free copies of
Destiny 2 to everyone who pre-ordered the Founder’s
and Premiere Editions, because if they didn’t there
would be nobody playing. And indeed, that’s how
our review period has gone. I’ve spent the past week
running around empty planets and visiting an empty
Tower and trying to complete the Haunted Forest
on my own and it has been very weird. I’ll be curious
whether the population picks up after Stadia’s released,
but it’s hard to imagine it ever being as vibrant as the
existing console or PC versions.Red Dead Redemption II: I was particularly curious
to try out Red Dead Redemption II given that we
struggledtorunit at1080ponanNvidiaGeForce
RTX 2080 Ti.Unshackledbylocalhardware
constraints,could Google Stadia run Red Dead better
than a high-end PC? And the answer is, not really.
It’s hard to do an A/B comparison given the variables
at play, but the Stadia version’s lighting seemed
flatter, and the otherworldly fog effects that left me
slack-jawed on PC were undercut by omnipresent
compression artifacts.
Loadtimeswerefaster,though.Andbesides,
it wasRed Dead Redemption II streamed to a £69
Chromecast Ultra. That’s impressive in its own right.
I also think games like Red Dead are a better proof-
of-concept for Stadia because they’re not as reliant on
tight timing windows as shooters, fighting games, and
the other genres Google seems hell-bent on proving