What you need to know
- Hitman 3, set to be released on Jan. 20, will be the first Stadia game to use the new State Share feature.
- State Share allows players to capture moments of the game, such as a specific level with a certain loadout, and make it playable at the click of a link.
- Hitman 1 and 2 will also get State Share features on the same day.
Today, Google announced that its long-anticipated State Share feature will launch alongside Hitman 3 on Jan. 20 and will be operational in the entire Hitman: World of Assassination trilogy.
State Share is a Stadia-exclusive feature that allows players to capture moments of a game, such as defining the difficulty, loadout settings, and objectives in a mission, and sending that game state for others to try at the click of a link.
It's a feature that will not only let players challenge each other with specific scenarios, but will also allow players to try out sections of a game they may not have reached yet or use items they haven't unlocked. However, accessing content via State Share will not count as progress on your own save file. State Share content exists on its own — it's kind of like a portal into someone else's game for a brief time.
State Share in Hitman will support any campaign mission or any custom mission, so there is a lot of flexibility. It sounds like using the feature will be as simple as just pressing the capture button. By default, with a single tap it takes a screenshot or a long press records the last 30 seconds of gameplay. From the sounds of it in this blog post, any time a "capture" includes a shareable game state, it'll have a new little icon on it in your "Capture & game states" library, which you can share by copying the link. That's it.
In the blog post, Stadia project manager Catherin Hsiao also explains how State Share may work in future games:
State Share will be used differently in each game that supports it, so the gameplay elements included in each game state and the overall player experience will vary. Stadia is providing the overall structure within State Share for our partners to decide what works best for their game.For example, a game state might take players to the beginning of a level with the custom character, inventory, and health that you originally experienced. Other game states might teleport you right to the moment when you saved the capture. Or, they might start a new game with some of the original player's accomplishments shown on the map.
Since State Share will be available in not only Hitman 3, but also Hitman 1 and 2 starting on Jan. 20. Anybody can try out the feature if you're subscribed to Stadia Pro, since the first two games in the trilogy are included in the collection of Free Stadia Pro games.
