Good news, Google Stadia users: If you’re trying to search for your favorite games on the platform’s web store, you can do that now. That’s right, the billion-dollar tech company that became a tech titan through its mastery of search results somehow didn’t include a search bar on its online games store.
Needless to say, this inspired some negative reactions from notable gaming personalities. “Google is literally a search bar company,” Noclip founder (and former GameSpot host) Danny O’Dwyer correctly pointed out.
“It’s great that after almost 1.5 years hiring and laying off entire games studios and generally squandering their early launch advantage, the massive corporation entirely built around Search has integrated a Search [bar] into its service,” Vlambeer co-founder Rami Ismail said.
It’s great that after almost 1.5 years, hiring and laying off entire games studios, and generally squandering their early launch advantage, the massive corporation entirely built around Search has integrated a Search into its service. I wish Stadia had been handled better. https://t.co/rL6imYnEkh
— Rami Ismail (رامي) (@tha_rami) April 28, 2021
As an accompanying blog post reveals, the search bar isn’t the only new feature coming to Stadia in the coming days. The platform is also getting an updated UI that allows you to sort your library into purchased, free, and Pro categories. The post also gives progress updates on other features that will come out in the future, such as an activity feed that allows you to see what your friends are up to, as well as the ability to use an Android web browser to view the store rather than the Stadia app itself.
Other Stadia fans expressed surprise that the tweeted screencap appears to “leak” the upcoming releases of Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag and Assassin’s Creed Revelations on the service. The official Stadia account also stated that support for the platform on Chromecast will be coming in the first half of the year.
