Gylt Dev Compares Stadia To "Early Days Of Steam," And Loves Developing For It

Google Stadia has had a rocky launch period, and reviews, including our own, have largely been apprehensive. But the system has a big fan in Raul Rubio, CEO and creative director at Tequila Works, the studio behind the Stadia-exclusive horror game Gylt.

Speaking to Gamesindustry.biz, Rubio says that the developer was approached by Google two years before the system’s launch, and says that the studio had a “very open and honest dialog” with Google. He says that Gylt was, ultimately, the “smoothest production for a Tequila Works game ever.” Earlier titles from the studio include Deadlight, Rime, and Groundhog Day: Like Father, Like Son.

Rubio says that he “only has good words” about the team behind Stadia, saying that they were “very hands off” and let the studio work autonomously. He says that while Google shared a lot of data, they did not focus on the game’s artistic ambitions when providing notes: “most of the time it was facts, like where people were getting stuck in the game.”

Rubio says that he has been impressed by Stadia, and the way it works regardless of your hardware, thanks to streaming technology. “It’s going to get better,” he opines. “In fact, one day when we look back, people will wonder why people were questioning streaming at all. I’m not talking about Stadia specifically. I’m talking about streaming in general.”

Addressing the complaints, Rubio says that in his opinion, “this is like the early days of Steam in a sense that this is when people were complaining that it took too long to download… (and that) the price was exactly the same as a boxed game.”

He also says that there are “many features that are super cool that are not active yet” for Stadia. It’s not yet clear what features Rubio is referring to, but hopefully we’ll find out more about Google’s ambitions for Stadia in 2020.