Tequila Works' Gylt May Not Be A Stadia Exclusive After All

Most of the gaming world has been assuming that Tequila Works' Gylt is a Google Stadia exclusive, because, well, that's what Google told us. It turns out that may not necessarily be true.

The fine folks at Eurogamer decided to dig in a bit deeper this week, seemingly shocked that Tequila Works would lock a brand new game behind a $129 Stadia Founder's Edition paywall, and then make everyone else wait until 2020 to play it. Was that really the plan?

Eurogamer asked Tequila Works to clarify, and this is what the outlet got in response.

"OK we haven't confirmed that it's an exclusive yet," responded Raúl Rubio Munárriz, a Tequila Works co-founder. Okay, that's not quite clarity. Is it a full-on exclusive? Is it timed? Can the word 'exclusive' be placed anywhere near the word Gylt and have meaning?

"We haven't answered that yet and I cannot answer yet," Munárriz said.

Finally, Eurogamer cracked the code by bringing up Stadia's Founder's Edition price, and noting that could be cost-prohibitive to some of the studio's fans.

"Of course, we will try to make Gylt accessible for everyone," Munárriz told the site. "I guess it's not a design question, it's more of a business question. Today is not the time to answer that question but rest assured, everyone will be able to play the game."

This has all the looks of a game like Rise of the Tomb Raider on Xbox One, where Microsoft wouldn't come out and say the game would appear on other platforms, and Square Enix wouldn't come out and say the game would appear on other platforms, and then sure enough, it did. It took a year, but it did.

Google is new to this space, so we'd forgive the company for perhaps not understanding all the various ways something can be exclusive these days; plain-old exclusives, console exclusives, launch exclusives. Except Stadia head Phil Harrison — who used to work at Microsoft — is not new to video games, and probably knows the difference. If Gylt is not a 100% Stadia-exclusive title, the team at Tequila Works really needs to be allowed to say that. And Google should stop telling people that it is. Because it certainly looks like it's not.

Should we learn more on Gylt and its exclusivity on Stadia, we'll fill you in.