Google’s Stadia cloud gaming service remains to be arising with new methods to draw players, and it’s lastly attempting one which we’ve urged for years: free time-limited trials of whole video games, so you possibly can see whether or not it’s for you. As 9to5Google reports, now you can hop on over to Stadia, check in together with your Google account, and be enjoying a 30-minute free trial of Hello Engineer just by following this link and scrolling all the way down to the “Free trial” button you see under.

Google additionally has this dedicated webpage for different free trials that it would supply sooner or later, although it solely seems to incorporate Hello Engineer for now. Google beforehand tried some restricted demos.

Honestly, it’s nonetheless not as seamless because it may very well be. You nonetheless do need to check in with that Google account (even in the event you’re already signed into your Google account for Gmail, Drive, and many others), you continue to need to click on via a well being and security display screen, and one other display screen to confirm entry, after which wait a tad for the sport to load. We’re nonetheless not on the magical “click an ad for a game to instantly be playing that game” fairly but.

But it’s a step in the best route, notably if this turns into an ordinary characteristic of Stadia titles. And why not? From a recreation developer or writer’s standpoint, there’s no work wanted to create a demo, and the truth that it’s a cloud recreation ought to alleviate any privateness considerations. When Gaikai arrived on the cloud gaming scene over a decade in the past, it demonstrated the your-game-ad-can-be-a-game idea proper from the start.

If you take pleasure in Hello Engineer, you should purchase it for $19.99 on Stadia, or join a Stadia Pro subscription that features it at no cost. Other utterly free choices on Stadia embody Destiny 2 and Super Bomberman R Online, so there’s no level in questioning whether or not cloud gaming know-how truly works for you: you possibly can simply attempt it proper now with three completely different video games, no strings connected, to search out out.

Just don’t essentially anticipate Google to place its full weight behind Stadia anymore. I wrote how Google appeared extra serious about its whitelabel potential in February, and final week we realized how AT&T has taken Google up on the supply with its personal free trial of Batman: Arkham Knight.