Google Stadia — the cloud-based game-streaming service — promises to deliver console and PC quality to players regardless of the device they use, no matter if it’s a Pixel phone, tablet, or laptop. Now, thanks to today’s Made By Google 2019 event, we know when you’ll be able to try it out for yourself: Google Stadia will officially launch on November 19. This announcement came alongside the Pixel 4, Pixel Buds 2, and the Nest Home Mini.
As previously revealed by Google, the only way you’ll be able to play Google Stadia at launch is with the Founder’s Edition, which comes with a controller, three months of the Stadia Pro subscription service, and a Chromecast Ultra for playing on a television. At launch, the only phones supported will be the Pixel 3, Pixel 3 XL, Pixel 3a, Pixel 3a XL and newer.
The official Stadia controller was designed for those with both large and small hands, and its engineers revealed during the Made by Google event that the shape of its grip was originally based on a knife handle.
Google certainly isn’t skimping when it comes to the games you’ll be able to play on Stadia. Big-name first-person shooters such as Destiny 2: Shadowkeep and Doom Eternal are coming to the streaming service, and it will also support Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption 2.
The promises being made for future Stadia performance are certainly lofty — though they have also been met with some mocking online. The company believes it can achieve “negative latency” within the next few years, which could predict your button presses before you actually make them. This could potentially remove user input from the gaming equation, and would work by pre-rendering frames so that they are prepared for when the button is actually pressed. As it stands, there is very little latency on the current version of Stadia, though the quality we experienced during the Project Stream test was not on par with a PC or console.
Google will have hefty competition in the game-streaming space, as Microsoft is also preparing to launch its Project xCloud service. The service was just opened up to preview members with Android devices, and also allows players to enjoy PC or console AAA games on practically any device they own.
The Call of Duty franchise has held a special place in my heart ever since I played my first Black Ops game back in 2010. That game's campaign was something else, with twists and turns that culminated in a mind-blowing finale. We can all admit that compared to those older campaigns, the recent CODs have been lackluster at best, and a complete and utter disappointment at worst. The reboot of Modern Warfare did give me some hope, as the first two installments were actually quite good, but the third game left such a bad taste in my mouth that I wasn’t exactly expecting much from Modern Warfare 4.
After recently finishing the campaign, I can say that this installment is nothing like the recent releases and instead feels closer to the franchise’s roots. For the first time in a long while, the campaign comes across as well-crafted rather than rushed to hit a release date. It arrives three years after MW3, and you can see exactly where all that time went. It seems the studio finally made listening to player feedback a priority.
Epic Games has just announced the 2026 Epic AI MegaJam, which is looking to see how much game development can be squeezed into a very short window. This is running from November 12 through November 15.
Participants can work alone or in teams of up to five people, build in Unreal Engine or Unreal Editor for Fortnite, and bring along “as many AI agents as you want.” Epic explicitly encourages coding agents, AI-generated assets, audio tools, writing tools, and other AI systems. The official event page literally says "Vibe your way to $50k.”
It’s turning into a pretty good time to be a Monster Hunter fan who plays on a phone. Capcom has confirmed that Monster Hunter Outlanders will launch on Android and iOS on October 29, giving the series a new mobile-first game just as Monster Hunter Rise is also preparing to make the jump to smartphones through Netflix.
Outlanders is being developed by Tencent subsidiary TiMi Studio Group under license and supervision from Capcom. Unlike Rise, which appears to be the full console and PC game adapted for mobile, Outlanders is a free-to-play survival hunting game made specifically for phones.