In an effort to get more people excited about the streaming platform, Google held a Stadia Connect to announce plenty of new games, features, and partnerships coming to the platform. Stadia is partnering with Harmonix, Uppercut Games, and Supermassive Games to create titles with Stadia in mind.
Stadia has been holding Connects throughout the year to bring excitement and attention to the streaming platform. Despite its best efforts, the feeling is still very lukewarm towards Stadia and everything it offers. These events, however, take place to mostly announce new games for Stadia and offer new features to players. Some games joining the Stadia line up this year include Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, the Hitman games, and Super Bomberman R Online which is an updated version of the title that is appearing first on Stadia.
During the Stadia Connect, Khaled Abdel Rahman from Stadia Games and Entertainment appeared on screen to announce new partnerships with three studios. Harmonix, Uppercut Games, and Supermassive Games are partnering with Stadia Games and Entertainment to bring new experiences to the Stadia lineup. No information was offered on what these studios would be working on but Rahman mentioned that information would be later this year. Rahman also added that these are just a few of the studios that Stadia is partnering with.Â
Harmonix is known for making popular rhythm and music-based games, notably developing the Guitar Hero franchise and then moving on to the creation of Rock Band. Meanwhile, Supermassive Games gained its popularity with the 2015 horror game Until Dawn, then continued to produce different horror games including scary VR experiences. Lastly, Uppercut Games who most recently developed the first-person rogue-lite game, City of Brass.
Stadia is attempting to pull in any goodwill and faith from fans and early adopters on its platform. Partnering with three studios is a good start to get fans excited. However, it’s not known if these will be games exclusive to Stadia and that will be the real way to win over players. Stadia needs more exclusives to break the idea that it doesn’t have games and to get people interested and reinvested in the platform. Anything less will be a big miss for Google.
Fans still clinging on to hope that Stadia will turn things around sooner or later should be somewhat pleased with the recent Stadia Connect. The presentation showed off a ton of games players can expect to play on the platform in the near future. The downside to this is, a lot of the games shown in the Connect are already available on other platforms or will be at launch. So for someone already invested in the gaming space, it may be hard to pull those players into the Stdia ecosystem. If the new partnerships can’t deliver, Stadia may be in some serious trouble.