Skip to main content

Google will announce Stadia pricing, games, and launch details this week

Assassin's Creed Odyssey review
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Google announced in a tweet that it would be sharing more details about its upcoming game streaming service Stadia ahead of E3 2019. It prefaced the news with the words, “Some news can’t wait for #E3,” and followed up by inviting viewers to tune in on Thursday, June 6, at 9 a.m. PT to the first Stadia Connect, a livestream where we will finally learn more details around Stadia’s pricing, games, launch, and more.

This is a pretty big deal considering Google remained fairly quiet about some of the service’s most pertinent details. It’s also interesting that it’s opting to unveil this news prior to the most important video game conference in the world, E3. Does this mean Google thinks its news will get drowned out in the sea of announcements anticipated at E3? Or is the Stadia news so juicy that the company just can’t wait to reveal more? We’ll see on June 6.

Stadia Connect 6.6.2019 - Pricing, Game Reveals, Launch Info & More

First introducing the tech as Project Stream, Google allowed interested gamers to sign up and participate in a “technical test” to help them address common issues it has with cloud gaming. Since then, the company revealed the project to be Stadia, a service that promises to deliver high-end gaming via streaming to every and any platform connected to the internet. Several companies are already working on their own game streaming services, but Google’s offering is a bit more ambitious than the competition.

While we already know a good amount about what Stadia promises to deliver, how much it will cost, what games it will offer, and when it will launch are all questions that have yet to be directly addressed. Speculation has been made about the price with many pointing to a Netflix-style subscription service that would offer players access to a large library of games, and while Google confirmed a launch in the U.S., Canada, and Europe, it has not given a firm date or an estimated time of arrival. Despite this, many sources estimate it will arrive in the last quarter of the year.

The Stadia Connect event is already up and scheduled on YouTube. If you don’t want to miss the livestream, we suggest visiting the page and setting a reminder so you’ll receive a notification prior to and at the moment it begins.

Editors' Recommendations

Felicia Miranda
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Born in '89 and raised through the 90s, I experienced what I consider to be the golden age of video games. At an early age, I…
Gylt, Google Stadia’s first exclusive, is coming to other platforms
google stadias first exclusive game gylt to go multiplatform

Google Stadia's first exclusive game, Gylt, will be ported to other platforms in 2023. Tequila Works, the Spanish studio behind the game, confirmed that Gylt is going multiplatform in a brief announcement on its website Tuesday, just five days after Google announced it will be shutting down Google Stadia in January 2023.

Gylt is a 2019 horror game that explores themes of bullying and childhood nightmares. You play as Sally as she navigates a haunted world while searching for her missing cousin, Emily, and confronting her fears along the way. "Spooky season is around the corner … And we bring terrific news!" Tequila Works said in the blog post announcing the ports. "We’ve been working on it for a long time and it’s finally time to make it official: GYLT is going multiplatform in 2023!"

Read more
Google Stadia’s dedicated community faces heartbreak amid service closure
Google Stadia controller.

The Google Stadia subreddit knew about the service’s shutdown just slightly ahead of the official announcement. Users had already been posting about the Stadia Store’s UI changes that day when somebody posted a screen they saw in the app about how the Stadia store was “now closed.” In a few minutes, the whole internet would know that Google had decided to shutter Stadia by January 18, 2023, and refund all hardware and game purchases.

Stadia had a rocky launch and was never able to recover. So while the official Stadia Twitter account tried to squash rumors it was shutting down a few months ago, it couldn't stop what people saw as inevitable. However, it still came as a huge shock to many in the Stadia community. While Google is offering refunds on purchases, it can't fix what had become a tightly knit community of people who needed the failing platform to play.

Read more
Ubisoft and more offer ways to play purchased Google Stadia games elsewhere
The protagonist of Assassin's Creed: Valhalla shouting in battle and wielding two axes.

Google recently announced that it plans to shutter its cloud gaming service Stadia in early 2023, leaving players who used it as one of their primary platforms in an awkward situation. Google already promised to refund people for their Google Stadia hardware and software purchases, but people are still losing access to games they enjoyed and save files they possibly dumped hours into. Thankfully, some developers are working on ways to help Stadia players.
The most notable studio to help Stadia players is Ubisoft, which was Google's earliest partner for the technology via an Assassin's Creed Odyssey demo. "While Stadia will shut down on January 18, 2023, we're happy to share that we're working to bring the games you own on Stadia to PC through Ubisoft Connect," Ubisoft tweeted. "We'll have more to share regarding specific details, as well as the impact for Ubisoft+ subscribers, at a later date." Thankfully, the Stadia versions of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, Far Cry 6, Immortals Fenyx Rising, Tom Clancy’s The Division 2, and Watch Dogs: Legion support cross-progression, so players won't lose their save files. 
https://twitter.com/UbisoftSupport/status/1575922767593078793
Ubisoft isn't the only developer to help. Developer Muse Games is giving Embr Steam codes to those who played its comedic co-op firefighting game on Stadia if they email the developer with screenshots of Embr in their Stadia library. Meanwhile, IO Interactive confirmed that it is "looking into ways for you to continue your Hitman experience on other platforms," as the World of Assassination trilogy was available on Google Stadia. 
There's still the matter of the five Google Stadia exclusives: Gylt, Hello Engineer, Outcasters, Pac-Man Mega Tunnel Battle, and PixelJunk Raiders. So far, only one of those games seems like it will be saved. PixelJunk Raiders developer Q-Games said in a blog post that "we hope to find a way to continue to share the vibrant worlds of Planet Tantal in the future, and we’re open to discussing opportunities to find the right publishing partner to make it happen.. Tequila Works, tinyBuild, Splash Damage, and Bandai Namco Entertainment did not respond to requests for comment from Digital Trends.
While the shutdown of Google Stadia is disappointing for players like myself who enjoy cloud gaming, at least players will be get refunds, and in some cases get the game for a new platform.

Read more