When Destiny 2 comes to Google Stadia later this year, it will allow players to transfer over their saves from other platforms. This allows players to keep their progression regardless of where they play. Now, it seems that Google wants Stadia cross-save to happen for every single game coming to the service.
During a recent StadiaCast video interview, Google Stadia Vice President John Justice confirmed that the Stadia team is working to bring cross-saves to most, if not all games coming to the service. According to Justice, the ability for a player to carry their progression between platforms will be an important feature of the next-generation of gaming.
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“That’s something that we see as a key piece of next-gen,” explained Justice. “We’re trying to push that next-gen is all about openness, it’s about being able to play across your friend groups, it’s about taking down these walled gardens, it’s about being able to keep your progression wherever it is you are.”
Justice also mentioned that the feature would benefit both multiplayer focused games, as well as those focused on story. “Whether it’s a single player or a multiplayer [game] you want to keep that progress going, so we’re trying to get that everywhere,” he explained. For the latter, he used The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim, a game that hasn’t been confirmed for Stadia yet, as an example of a story based game that would benefit from players being able to transfer their progression between platforms. With some dedicated players likely having put years into the game, allowing them to keep that progression should a Stadia version be released does sound a like a good idea.
While Google is quite gung-ho on the subject of cross-saves, Justice admitted that other platform holders are not as open to the idea: “Not every game platform is wholly on board with this, and some of them are on board with it for some titles and not for others, so we are pushing it forward, we’re working with developers and we’re trying to move the rest of the game platforms there.”
Destiny 2 represents one of the rare examples of a game allowing cross-saves between not just different systems, but different platform holders. Prior to this, most implementations of cross-save have been between one platform holder’s various systems. Examples of the latter include Sony allowing save transfers between certain games on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, and PS Vita. More recently, Microsoft is implementing cross-saves for Gears 5 on Xbox One and Windows PC.
As for which platform holders were holding out, Justice declined from mention any. While it would be easy to speculate that it’s one of the console manufacturers, other platforms holders on PC could be hesitant to allow the feature as well. These platform holders are probably worrying that allowing players to continue their progression on Stadia could be a gateway to them simply choosing to go with the latter moving forward.
Aside from cross-saves, Justice also mentioned a few other features that Stadia would have at launch or soon after. These include a number of things some may see as standard features now, such as parental controls. Additionally, he also hinted at giving free trials for games. More interesting, however, is that Google is apparently looking into ways to implement mod support for some games on the system.
In addition to all this, Justice clarified some misconceptions about the Stadia Pro subscription. He stated that it was not a mandatory subscription to access content, similar to Netflix. ” The Pro subscription, think about it more as an optional thing that adds some extra features, just like PS Plus or Live Gold,” he explained. “They add some games, they add some extra features. Not only do we give you the hardware layers [with Base] and don’t make you pay for that, we also don’t block multiplayer.”
