[Update: Back online] Stadia and PGA Tour 2K21 have a failure to launch

I’m not going to lie, I woke up a bit more excited about things than usual thanks in part to the launch of a game I’ve been looking forward to on Stadia for quite some time now: PGA Tour 2K21. I wrote a piece over on Gaming Unboxed about how much I loved the Tiger Woods PGA Tour games of old and the fact that when I think about a service like Stadia, a game like this one feels like the perfect fit for me. After all, Stadia is at its best with a Chromecast Ultra and the Stadia controller, and games like PGA Tour 2K21 are tailor made for that setup.

When 12PM rolled around here on the east coast, I was read to plunk down my money for PGA Tour 2K21 and had the game purchased and ready to play within just minutes of the launch. I had a few things to tend to but returned around 1:30PM to fire the game up and go through the obligatory setup steps that generally stand between an eager gamer and the actual gameplay itself. As I waited for the game to load, however, things weren’t progressing as I’d expect, and soon waiting turned to confusion and then to frustration.

I was launching the game from my Chromebook on the web, so I thought maybe Stadia’s not-so-reliable web portal was the culprit. I quickly pulled out my phone and launched the Stadia app there, navigated to PGA Tour 2K21 and, to my surprise, the loading screen just kept on spinning there as well. At this point I realized something was wrong and searched out others on the web having the same problems.

It didn’t take long to find some other potential players seeing the issue on Reddit, and one post in particular pointed me over to the PGA Tour 2K21 Twitter account where, as of 1:51PM, the company says there is officially an issue with the game. Not only is there a problem, but it is substantial enough that they’ve pulled the game from the Stadia Store for the time being. Talk about a big-time bummer.

For now, we’re only a half-hour or so into the investigation of what exactly is going on, but we’re quite certain there are many of you out there trying to get logged on and started with this new game and are likely running into the same, frustrating issue. My guess is the problem will get sorted in short order, but there’s a chance it isn’t that simple, either. For now, just know that if you are confused looking for PGA Tour 2K21 in the Stadia Store, you aren’t imagining things: it’s not there right now. And if you have it and simply can’t play it, you aren’t alone there, either. It’s a bad look for a game platform in need of a win, so I’m hoping we’ll see a resolution sooner than later. We’ll update when it happens.

Update: As of yesterday evening, it appears that PGA Tour 2K is back up and running. The tweet came through around 8:30 EST and everything seems to be working as it should be at this time.

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