Things have been pretty quiet on the “Gods & Monsters” front. Originally, the game was set to launch on February 25 of this year. However, the COVID-19 crisis and other problems have delayed many of Ubisoft’s launch titles. Some players got a sudden and unexpected treat though when a “Gods & Monsters” demo appeared on Google Stadia. Unfortunately, neither Ubisoft or Google Stadia meant for this to happen.
On Thursday, a demo of “Gods & Monsters” appeared on Google Stadia under the codename Orpheus. As it turns out, this was the demo of the game shown to select press members at E3 2019. That means the demo is a year old and nowhere close to what the title actually looks like today. Orpheus was available for approximately thirty minutes before Google realized the error and removed it. However, the damage was already done. Thirty minutes gave players ample time to download, play, and share footage online.
From the footage, “God & Monsters” seems to resemble “The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild” in some ways. There is an open, expansive world that the character can explore at their leisure. A vibrant, colorful art style has me thinking about hunting down Korok spirits all over again. The protagonist has a circular stamina bar similar to Link’s and climbs walls in a similar fashion. Of course, it’s very possible that these features have since been changed. Even from the brief video clips it’s obvious that the game was far from complete.
Google Stadia made a statement about the mistake via Kotaku:
“Regretfully, on Thursday morning, we mistakenly made an E3 2019 demo version of “Gods and Monsters” from Ubisoft available on the Stadia store that was not intended for the public to play. A few hundred gamers were able to play it for less than 30 minutes. We sincerely apologize to our partners at Ubisoft for this mistake.”
Clearly, Google Stadia is continuing to have a bad time. The Stadia has already suffered considerably from a lack of exclusives. Add to that their very limited game options and it’s not hard to see why many have yet to jump on the Google gaming bandwagon. Hopefully, the rest of the year will prove a little better for them.
