After announcing the 22 games for Stadia's beginning catalog, Google just announced that Massive Miniteam's multiplayer arcade game Spitlings will be joining that catalog as a timed-exclusive.
Spitlings is a 1-4 player hardcore co-op arcade game with hundreds of levels, an intuitive level editor, and lots of characters, music tracks, and visual themes to unlock. co-op is key in Spitlings if one player fails the level everyone has to restart. You will be able to create your own fast-paced arcade fun with the level editor and then play that level with your friends the moment you finish creating it. You will also be able to download community-created levels for use with arcade mode. The 100 plus story mode levels become available in the arcade mode after you beat them allowing you to replay them to improve your times.
As of now there is not set release date for Spitlings launching on Google Stadia, and no word on how long the timed-exclusivity is for the game. After it's timed-exclusivity on Stadia Spitlings will be coming to PC, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4.
Stadia's launch line up has been criticized for being rather weak, especially in comparison to what Microsoft will be offering with Xbox Game Pass and Project xCloud. It remains to be seen how exactly Google plans to make Stadia stand out from the pack of other similar services as the next generation of consoles is set to launch next year. Just by virtue of being a Google service Stadia has the resources to try things other companies might not, but we will have to wait and see if Google is willing to take those kinds of chances with Stadia.
What do you think of timed-exclusives on platforms like Stadia? How do you think Google can make Stadia a stronger offering to get people to switch from their current platforms?
