Google Stadia: Everything you need to know

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused many of us around the country to work from home, forcing companies to adapt in new and creative ways. For Bungie, the developers of Destiny 2, Google Stadia was one of the key ways their teams were able to get back to working and playtesting effectively.

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During April’s Stadia Connect event, Google showed off Wave Break, an upcoming First on Stadia title that takes the familiar skateboarding genre and adds a heaping helping of Miami Vice. We took some time to chat with one of the developers of Wave Break, learning their ambitions for the game as well as what it’s like to develop for Google Stadia.

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Last year at GDC 2019, Google unveiled Stadia to game developers with a strong focus on new features that would be nearly impossible on traditional gaming platforms but are made easy with cloud gaming. One of those features, “State Share,” will be arriving for Stadia in beta this summer in support of Crayta.

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The next Stadia Connect event, where Google will share the latest features and games coming soon to Stadia, has now been set to take place next month.

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In addition to this morning’s launch of The Elder Scrolls Online for Pro, Google today is cutting the price of Stadia Premiere Edition to $99.99. However, the Google Store bundle now lacks a three-month Stadia Pro trial.

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Later this week, the initial two-month promo for Stadia’s free tier will end and be replaced by a more standard introductory offer. Regardless, all will benefit from June 2020’s six new Stadia Pro games.

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On Thursday, Google expanded Stadia access to all modern Android phones and the mobile app quickly hit a million installs after that. The Stadia website for prospective users was also redesigned to better sell the streaming service to news users and now features a list of available games.

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On Thursday, Google gave Android users the ability to play Stadia on any modern phone. Following that expanded support, the Stadia app now has over 1 million installs.

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This afternoon, Sony took the wraps off their long-anticipated PlayStation 5, and in the process of doing so, they’ve shown what Google Stadia is missing most.

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We’ve been tracking the progress of Google Stadia’s arrival on Google’s own Android TV platform, but it’s been a slow process. Today, though, there’s good news. Google Stadia now works on Android TV! It’s just not official and kind of a pain to set up. Let me explain.

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Google is today rolling out a suite of Stadia updates to improve mobile gameplay. In addition to expanding to more one OnePlus phones, all Android devices are picking up experimental Stadia support. Meanwhile, mobile touch controls are now rolling out.

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One of the biggest new titles coming to Google Stadia this year is Cyberpunk 2077. The game was originally slated to come to current consoles and PCs in April, but a pretty significant delay pushed the title back to September. As a result of that and placement on the game’s site, Cyberpunk 2077 was expected to arrive on Stadia at the same time as other platforms, but that’s not the case.

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Since launch, Google Stadia has been slowly gaining support for more and more Android phones outside of the Google Pixel series. With the release of Stadia for Android version 2.19, it looks like the service is preparing to allow you to play on phones that haven’t yet been “certified,” alongside other new features.

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