GOOGLE STADIA
The absolute best compliment that can be thrown
at the feet of Stadia, Google’s attempt to make
cloud gaming mainstream, is that I started playing
Borderlands 3 on it by accident. Genuinely. That’s
how easy it is to get something up and running
once you’re all set up. Trying to find out some info
(HDR support, fact fans) led to the game launching
in a few seconds after clicking on its logo. Idiot-
proof stuff, this.
And that high quality mark – smart design,
clarity, attractive branding – runs through a lot
of what Stadia offers. This is an incredibly good
service when it works, which it usually does, and is
definitely a bar-raiser for game streaming. If you’ve
got the Pro subscription and a minimum 35mbps
connection you’re looking at 4K, 60fps streaming
with HDR on supported displays – however
you look at it, that’s impressive. Even on slower
connections, the 1080p resolution doesn’t look at
all bad, and the convenience of the whole thing,
with you just needing a Chromecast Ultra or even
just the Chrome browser on your computer, makes
Stadia genuinely exceptional in a few ways. This
could well be the first major step towards a very
different future of gaming. Except...
It’s still early days – Google acknowledges
this isn’t Stadia’s full
public rollout yet, and
at the time of writing
it’s still reliant on invites
to get in unless you
fork out £119 for the
Founder’s Edition. That’s worth pointing out: it’s
still very much a beta, with features not working
fully, or at all, for now. All the same, it is limited
in some very silly ways – no wireless controller
support for smartphones; no ability to download/
save/share your screenshots, and videos short of
a complete Google Takeout data export; there’s
no integration with Google Assistant or anything
that was promised on stage in 2019, like sharing
slices of games with others and such. It’s just a
limited selection of games you can play without
dedicated hardware.
Then we get to the current killer:
this is not Netflix for games. While
that might have been believed briefly
after Stadia’s announcement, Google
hasn’t made a claim even close to
that before or after launch. Your
subscription bags you an ever-
changing selection of free games to add to your
collection, but it’s limited at best. Destiny 2? Sure.
Farming Sim? Huh? And beyond the paltry offering
for those paying just under a tenner a month, you
have to buy the games you want to play. If you’re
used to the world of Steam, GoG, Epic, and sales,
you’re in for a rough ride here as prices – even
when discounted – are
still very much on the
high side. Given there
are so few exclusives on
Stadia, if you’ve picked
up any PC games in the
last few years, there’s likely to be at least some
crossover here, and the expectation that you’ll drop
£50 to buy something, again, that you already own,
is a bit much to bear.
You need to pay for superfast broadband, an
£8.99-a-month subscription, the £119 buy-in
fee that comes with the Chromecast Ultra and
controller (which is very good, bar a dodgy D-pad),
then another £50 or so for a title like Red Dead
Redemption 2. Add all that together, and you get
a situation that feels far less worth it, hosted on
a system that is lacking those extra special bells
and whistles that make it something
memorable. Playing Borderlands 3
by accident was near-revelatory, and
the scale by which Stadia could grow
is incredible. But right now, it’s hard
to recommend this as anything other
than a fairly expensive curio.Price: £8.99/month (free version coming 2020)Works on: Chrome, Chromecast Ultra, (some) smartphones
RATING
6 / 10
“It’s still very much a beta,
with features not working
fully or at all for now” As long as you have Good
Internet and pay for Pro,
games look lovely.Fighting the tideInterface
wfmag.cc \ 23