Google offers a free copy of Assassin’s Creed Odyssey to anyone who plays Project Stream for one hour

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Some promotions are just discounts, and some are an invitation to test the future: Google’s in December 2018 was the second kind. Anyone who played at least one hour of Assassin’s Creed Odyssey on Project Stream, Google’s game streaming test in the Chrome browser, got a PC copy of the game, activated on Uplay.

The rules: the offer ran from December 14, 2018 to January 15, 2019, only for participants in the United States and for those who didn’t already own the game on Uplay. A nice detail: progress came along. Saves and items earned in the game, or bought with the 1,000 free Helix Credits each participant received, were carried over to the PC version; only unused credits were left behind. Redemption instructions would arrive by email in the weeks after the test ended.

What stands out about Project Stream is the choice of game. Instead of something light, Google ran a huge, detailed open world inside a browser tab, released by Ubisoft in October 2018, with ancient Greece full of cities, seas and landscapes. It was a showcase meant to prove the technology could handle it: the processing happened on servers, and the player only needed Chrome and a good connection.

What came next

Project Stream was the trial run for Stadia, Google’s cloud gaming service, launched on November 19, 2019. The bet did not pay off: in September 2022, Google announced the end of the service, citing a lack of traction with users. Stadia went offline on January 18, 2023, with refunds for hardware and game purchases. The controller also got an update to work over Bluetooth on other devices.

Source: Ubisoft, via Eurogamer.