For decades, video games have dominated the entertainment industry, their primary plus-point being the only form of entertainment that offers us ‘control’ over what we see and perceive. As for platforms that are used to play video games, those underwent quite an amount of evolution since the early ’80s. From coin-operated Arcade Machines to home-based Consoles; to Personal Computers and Laptops; and finally to hand-held Mobile devices and Virtual Reality gears, video game accessibility have come a long way since it’s first generation. There’s another new platform for video games that we often miss out or probably don’t even know about, as it is not nearly as common as it’s counterparts. I’m talking about vehicle dashboard screens. Yes, vehicle dashboard gaming is an actual thing now with classic games such as Asteroids, Lunar Lander, etc. already released for that platform.
Another game that will soon be making it’s way to this brand new platform is Cuphead. Cuphead was released for Microsoft Windows and Xbox One in 2017, for macOS in 2018, and very recently for Nintendo Switch in 2019. The game was developed and published by StudioMDHR and was highly praised for it’s 1930s themed cartoonish art-style as well as it’s challenging gameplay difficulty.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk revealed that Cuphead will be playable in Tesla Model 3, Model S, and Model X cars.
Musk made the announcement during episode 200 of the weekly Tesla podcast, Ride the Lightning, where he talked about his fascination for the game and how they are working with StudioMDHR to bring Cuphead to Tesla Cars’ Dashboard screens.
“When Tesla reached out to us to bring Cuphead to their vehicles, we were thrilled. Finding out that Mr. Musk was a fan of our game was extremely humbling and getting a chance to work with such an innovative company has been really exciting. We hope Cuphead can add some classic fun to such forward-thinking vehicles.” – said Maja Moldenhauer from StudioMDHR.
Moldenhauer also stated that Tesla’s only requirement from them was to make sure that the game ran with a smooth framerate without any issues. Based on Cuphead’s current performance on Tesla’s Dashboard screens during test runs, she stated that the Tesla version is already running “nice and clean”.
As mentioned above, the game will be coming to Tesla Model 3, Model S, and Model X cars. Like previous games released for the platform, Cuphead can be played on the cars’ dashboard screens while it is in Park. However, Cuphead can only be played using a wired USB controller and cannot be played using the car’s touchscreen controls. According to Elon Musk, due to storage limitations of Tesla vehicles, only Inkwell Isle One section of Cuphead will be playable in Tesla Dashboard screens.
Even though no particular release date have been announced yet, Tesla and StudioMDHR are targeting to bring the game to Tesla Dashboard screens later this summer for the aforementioned car models. This is indeed another giant step towards the accessibility of gaming, as a critically acclaimed title is making it’s way to vehicle dashboard screens, thus proving that gaming knows no bound and has the ability to reach people by almost any means possible.
