Update: 2 days before launch, Google has added 10 more titles to the Stadia launch lineup.

Google has announced what games are officially going to be available for Stadia at launch. Google Stadia is a cloud-based gaming service that was announced back in March, 2019. The service will allow users to stream games to virtually any screen at up to 60 FPS and 4k resolution.

Stadia is just one week from release and gamers are eager to test it out. It’s quite unknown if Stadia will be able to hold true to Google’s ambitious performance estimation, as the company decided to forego a Beta test. Rest assured though, Google says that multiplayer on Stadia will be even better than consoles. Whether or not that’s the case remains to be seen. Traditional game consoles rely on local hardware, that is, either a CPU with an integrated GPU or a CPU with a dedicated GPU. In layman’s terms, there are proven metrics to gauge the performance of a game console. With Stadia, all of the computing is done through the cloud. So the games performance is entirely reliant on the strength of the internet connection.

There will be 12 games that launch with Google Stadia on November 19th. Only one of the twelve is exclusive to Stadia, Tequila Works’ Gylt. The other 11 have all been previously released on PC, consoles, or both. Here’s the updated full list of all the games (*for games added to launch lineup November 17th):

  • Assassin’s Creed Odyssey *Attack on Titan: Final Battle 2 Destiny 2: The Collection (available in Stadia Pro) *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 (available in Stadia Pro) Shadow of the Tomb Raider Thumper Tomb Raider 2013 *Trials Rising *Wolfenstein: Youngblood

One game franchise is featured more than the others, as all three current-gen Tomb Raider games are included with Stadia, which accounts for 25% of the entire catalogue of games at launch. Stadia is not a streaming service like Netflix. Google shot down any comparisons to Netflix in July, comparing its business model more to PlayStation Plus and Xbox Live Gold. Players will get roughly one free game a month, starting with Destiny 2. There will be 14 more games added to Stadia by the end of the calendar year. Other highly anticipated games like Doom: Eternal and Cyberpunk 2077 will launch for Stadia, PC, and consoles in 2020.

There’s considerable optimism for Stadia and other cloud-based gaming services. Google has clearly waited for the market to catch up in terms of 4k TV sales, and faster broadband internet. Stadia will be a test though on whether the internet can hold up, as streaming on the service will take up nearly 1TB every 65 hours of use. That means that every hour of streaming will require 15.75GB’s of data transfer. As of today, it would really require a significant amount of bandwidth to stream these games as intended. In areas with high speed internet like those with Google Fiber, it will be much easier. Just don’t expect Stadia performance to be the same in much more remote areas of its launch regions.

Next: Project xCloud Preview Is Strong Start For Portable Xbox One

Google Stadia launches in the US, UK, and Canada on November 19th.

Source: Google