Stadia Games and Entertainment signs Harmonix and four other studios

Kyle Bradshaw | Jul 14 2020 - 11:45 am PT

Today marked the second Stadia Connect event for 2020, revealing a variety of new games coming soon to Google’s Stadia game streaming platform. During the video event, Google announced five new partnerships between Stadia Games and Entertainment and renowned game studios like Harmonix and Supermassive Games.

Originally announced side-by-side with Google Stadia back at GDC 2019, Stadia Games and Entertainment is Google’s division responsible for developing first-party titles and publishing second-party games for Stadia. For the past year, though, things have been fairly quiet on the Stadia Games and Entertainment front, other than announcements of studios opening and exciting hires.

With the July 2020 Stadia Connect though, that changed significantly, as Google’s Khaled Abdel Rahman took the wraps off five partnerships between Stadia Games and Entertainment and various game studios. In fact, the results of these partnerships can already be felt as Orcs Must Die! 3, published in partnership with Robot Entertainment, has released today on the Stadia store.

Hands-on: Orcs Must Die! 3 is a great first outing for Google Stadia Games and Entertainment

Later on this year, in the fall, we’ll also see Outcasters, an arcade-style party/shooter game be released as the first-ever “Only on Stadia” exclusive title, developed by Splash Damage in partnership with Stadia Games and Entertainment.

Looking further ahead, though, Stadia Games and Entertainment has revealed three other blossoming partnerships. The first — and from a personal standpoint most exciting — is with rhythm/music game developers Harmonix, best known for the Rock Band series, who is also set to be releasing their song remixing game, Fuser.

Along with Harmonix, Stadia Games and Entertainment has also entered partnerships with Uppercut Games, the developers of City of Brass, and Supermassive Games, the developers of the PlayStation 4 exclusive Until Dawn.

Considering the first two games from Stadia Games and Entertainment, Outcasters and Orcs Must Die! 3 are “Only on Stadia” (exclusive) and “First on Stadia” (timed exclusive) titles, respectively, it’s impossible to say at this point whether the fruits of the partnerships with Harmonix, Uppercut, and Supermassive will be true Stadia exclusives or simply timed exclusives.

Unfortunately, for all three studios, no specifics were given on the games we should expect. Instead, we’re simply told that we’ll hear more “later this year.” On the whole though, we’re excited to see what Stadia Games and Entertainment has in store for us over the next few years.