State Share for captures, a Pro trial without a payment method, and more coming soon to Stadia

An APK insights report by 9to5Google reveals several new and interesting tidbits in version 2.42 of the Stadia app. The ability to pair a Dualshock 4 Playstation controller or Microsoft’s Official and Adaptive Xbox controllers via Bluetooth or USB on Android and more strings related to the incoming text-based messaging system can be found within. Most notably, though, is State Share potentially coming to your game captures and the opportunity to grab a Stadia Pro trial without adding a payment method up front!

Stadia Pro without adding a payment method

The following code snippet in the app potentially points to Google letting users add a payment method ‘later’ in their free trial instead of at the beginning. The phrasing here seems to imply that a mid-trial prompt will occur to onboard new customers after first encouraging them to try the service risk-free. According to Kyle Bradshaw at 9to5Google, this could be related to something called a “form of payment-less free trial” or FOP for short. Though speculative at this time, it looks like the Stadia team is trying to cook up new ways to get people excited about their platform for the holidays!

Try Stadia Pro for the next

Add a payment method later to continue your trial.

9to5Google Stadia APK Insights

State Share in screenshots

Stadia’s State Share feature is supposed to be revolutionary. While we haven’t really seen it implemented much since it was announced, Crayta did make some use of it. The idea is that whatever you’re doing in a game can be captured and then turned into a link so that your friends with whom you share it can jump into that exact scenario with a single click. The link can also be shared across any platform just like a normal web URL too.

The code below may mean that Google is preparing to embed State Shares or snapshots of gameplay scenarios inside of photos and videos saved to your captures gallery. Being able to jump into a custom game from a still photo would be pretty insane and innovative. I imagine if the photo or video were shared on social media (From Stadia on the web) it would automatically be accompanied by a State Share link so that others could get in on the action.

This capture contains a game state

To play or share your game state, open this capture at stadia.com on a computer

See game state details

Include game state

To include your state when sharing, open this capture on a computer at stadia.com

9to5Google Stadia APK Insights

I feel like no one has truly used State Share to its full potential yet. When it was first announced, Google mentioned that things inside of the States would be able to be replicated exactly for other gamers, but so far, it’s only been used to launch a game and to load a specific level, which is a bit disappointing. You can read all about its potential if you’re interested, but I suppose we’ll have to see how it evolves over this next year.