GDC 2019: Google Forms A First-Party Studio To Make Stadia Games

Google has finally given the world its first glimpse at its big video game initiative: Stadia, an ambitious cloud gaming platform that will allow players to stream games across smartphones, tablets, computers, and TVs. The company has already announced a handful of third-party titles coming to the platform, but it'll also be venturing into game development with its own internal studio.

During its Game Developers Conference presentation, Google announced the formation of Stadia Games and Entertainment, a first-party studio that will develop titles exclusively for the platform. No projects have been announced just yet, but Google revealed the studio will be led by Jade Raymond, a former studio head at Ubisoft and EA.

We first learned that Raymond was hired by Google the week prior to GDC, when she announced she was joining the company as a vice president. At the time, her exact role was unclear, but her hiring further signified Google was making a serious attempt at entering the video game space.

Few other games have been announced for Stadia at this juncture, but Google also showed off Assassin's Creed Odyssey--which was the same game the company used for its Project Stream test last year--running on the platform. We also got confirmation that Doom Eternal is coming to Stadia, as is a new game from Star Fox co-creator Dylan Cuthbert's studio, Q-Games.

Google says it will share more details about Stadia's launch lineup this summer. The platform is slated to launch later this year and will initially be available in the US, Canada, the UK, and "most of" Europe. You can read more about how cloud gaming works and check out all of the Google gaming news from today's event.