I’m one of the main people covering Destiny 2 for Twinfinite these days and I’m on the road a lot. So I figured I’d roll the dice and see if having a Google Stadia around with me would be helpful so I don’t have to lug my PS4 or PC anytime I want to play Destiny 2.
Cross-save is a thing now for Destiny 2, so I don’t have to worry about losing progress. Google Stadia just has to work and I’d be satisfied with my purchase.
My results have been mixed. Sometimes it works like a charm, other times it feels like using remote play on a PS Vita (read: fine/OK, and often enough too it barely works at all and is borderline unplayable. It really depended on the internet.
This isn’t a Google Stadia review, but still, why anyone would elect to put up with this in order to play old games like Tomb Raider or Final Fantasy XV is beyond me. There’s a zero percent chance in its current state that I would ever buy or play a single-player, story-driven game on Google Stadia.
All that said, I do see the value in having access to my favorite “live” or multiplayer games with me pretty much anytime I have a decent internet connection and a compatible device (which is basically all of the time), especially since cross-save is becoming a lot more common in these types of games.
So rather than trying to lure players away from the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, Google Stadia should be selling itself as a valuable companion device that can also do some of the stuff that your other consoles can do.
Here are five games that already support cross save/progression in some form that Google should try and get on the Stadia ASAP.
Fortnite
This one is obvious right? It’s one of the most popular games in the world and it features both cross-platform and cross-save progression.
The cross-platform wouldn’t even be a deal-breaker necessarily; what’s key here is the cross-save action. Allowing hardcore Fortnite players to get their fix literally no matter where they are at, without having to play on necessarily a gaming laptop or console would be a nice perk for some players.
It’s also just a status thing. Fortnite is playable on just about everything. Does Google Stadia really want to be the only modern platform without Fortnite on it?
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare
Activision has been doing its part in breaking down barriers between consoles as of late with the cross-play and cross-save progression features included in the latest Call of Duty game, Modern Warfare.
Like most of the games on this list, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is incredibly popular, well-known, and is totally the type of game that hardcore fans would love to have access to wherever they go.
Not only is it just a fun game to have on the ready – and superior to its mobile alternatives – but it would be nice to know that the progress you’re making to your next golden gun will carry over while you’re on the road or just out of your usual gaming spot.
Dauntless
Dauntless might be Monster Hunter-lite in a lot of ways, but what it has over its main rival Monster Hunter: World is accessibility; it’s more accessible in every sense of the word.
Dauntless is an easier game to learn as the game is focused almost entirely on combat and not so much exploration, and the weapon system is far easier to get the basics down on. While it might lack the depth of Monster Hunter: World, it’s certainly a fun game to have loaded in case you wanted to quickly scrap with a few behemoths in between doing something else.
Like Fortnite, it’s on just about every platform imaginable at this point. The wide spread proliferation of the game, and its cross-platform progression, is one of the major draws of Dauntless.
Allowing Dauntless to hit Google Stadia would be a win-win for Google and Phoenix Labs. It’s another popular, fun game for the Stadia and yet another platform that Dauntless is on, and Monster Hunter: World is not.
Final Fantasy XIV
The first MMORPG to hit Google Stadia will be The Elder Scrolls Online which is great news for Stadia owners as TESO is a great game. That said, the crown jewel of the genre, at least for most of the editors here at Twinfinite is Final Fantasy XIV.
Final Fantasy XIV is cross-play and has cross-platform progression between the PS4 and PC versions of the game. It’s finally coming to Xbox One eventually but if Google could wrangle Square Enix to bring the excellent MMORPG to Stadia as well, that would be a huge perk for many fans of the game, especially PS4 players that would like to play on the go, but don’t have a laptop that can handle it.
Divinity: Original Sin 2
While all of the other games on this list are primarily multiplayer driven games and that’s fine because that was the original point I was trying to drill at the beginning, but there are plenty of older single-player games that do have some appeal. Sure, Tomb Raider isn’t one of them but Divinity: Original Sin 2 is.
Divinity: Original Sin 2 is a massive game with so much potential in terms of role-playing, character-building, and taking advantage of multiple playthroughs to tackle certain quests differently.
Developer Larian Studios has embraced cross-platform progression play between the Switch and PC versions of the game. While it’s a nice perk for land-locked PC players to be able to carry their game over to their Switch, not everyone owns a Switch (even if they should).
Having the option to go with a Stadia as your portable version of Divinity Original Sin 2 would be very nice indeed for some fans. And also, well, Divinity Original Sin 2 is a great game and that would be a nice get for Google.
Published: Jan 8, 2020 05:04 pm