Google’s presence at E3 2019 is a bit like Sony’s… Not really there but it’s everywhere! From the game announcements mentioning Stadia availability (such as the new Avengers game by Square Enix) to the many attendees and press discussing the recent Stadia news from Stadia Connect. There is still many questions about Stadia – what to expect later this year when the platform launches? How well will it work? We briefly got to try Stadia at the YouTube Gaming space and it was impressive!

Big Game, Basic Hardware

On display was Doom Eternal, a Stadia launch game and something that really shows what Stadia is capable of. The game was being played through Chrome on a Pixelbook connected to a TV running at 1080p 60fps. Doom Eternal was great – Though it was only 1080p the visuals were impressive, showing no video artifacting/compression and there was no noticeable input lag. Load times were minimal and the overall performance was impressive. It honestly felt like we were playing a game that was running on the hardware right in front of us. The game did crash once minutes after starting the playthrough, however it was up and running again within a minute. Other than that, it worked great and Doom Eternal is coming together nicely.

The Perfect Controller?

To control the demo we used the Stadia controller and it felt great – The controller itself feels a bit like an Xbox One controller. Similar in size and weight, it feels just as good… Even better… I prefer symmetrical thumb sticks!

Though our time with Stadia was ridiculously short, what we did see was impressive and has made us even more hyped for the platform. Stadia launches this November with over 30 games. 5 months to go!