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Stadia launches in one day. One day and we’ll be able to finally try out the service for ourselves and, if I’m being honest, it feels a bit like Christmas Eve around here. I’ve been relentlessly clicking into the Google Store to see if my Founder’s Edition has shipped yet, and even though it hasn’t, I’m undeterred. My money has been taken, so mine should be shipping out today or tomorrow, which means my invite code will arrive at the time of Stadia’s go-live on Tuesday morning.
With that anticipation, my hopes and expectations were a tad bit tempered when the somewhat-short list of games available at launch came out last week. Sure, I didn’t exactly plan on buying up a bunch of games on day one, but I know there were tons of people a bit let down by the news. For me, I plan on trying out Stadia by playing quite a bit of the bundled Destiny 2 that comes along with purchase of the Founders Edition and then expanding my library out from there.
Additionally, I recognize that titles at launch are always a tad slim for any gaming console: especially brand-new ones. So, while this was a small disappointment for me, it was a pretty big offense to many bought-in users, potential users, and skeptics of Google’s new gaming platform.
Thankfully, Google has surprised us with an additional 10 titles that will be available at launch, bringing the grand total to a much more respectable 22 games on launch day. The original 10 (or twelve if you count all 3 variants of Tomb Raider) were fine, but this number feels much more indicative of a company/service that has been years in development and wants to show up on the scene looking like they know what they are doing. Here’s the updated list now that the extra titles have been added:
- Assassin’s Creed Odyssey
- Attack on Titan: Final Battle 2
- Destiny 2: The Collection
- Farming Simulator 2019
- Final Fantasy XV
- Football Manager 2020
- Grid 2019
- Gylt
- Just Dance 2020
- Kine
- Metro Exodus
- Mortal Kombat 11
- NBA 2K20
- Rage 2
- Rise of the Tomb Raider
- Red Dead Redemption 2
- Samurai Shodown
- Shadow of the Tomb Raider
- Thumper
- Tomb Raider 2013
- Trials Rising
- Wolfenstein: Youngblood
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For reference, most consoles launch with somewhere between three and twenty titles, so this puts Stadia above the average and into the realm of ‘most games available at launch.’ Just a day ago, they were just somewhere in the middle of the pack. If shipping goes well and those who ordered early mostly get their Founders Edition packages in a timely manner, I think it is safe to say Google has done a decent job with this launch. We won’t know until everything really starts tomorrow, and we’re excited!
