Google are gearing up for the wider launch of their Stadia game streaming platform, with the surprising announcement that the service will be free for two months for new, and existing, users.

The service is normally $10 a month and provides gamers access to stream games and play them in real time from a collection that includes big titles such as Red Dead Redemption 2 and Destiny 2. To date, the platform has only been open to those buying the Stadia hardware, but now it is free for anyone to road test for two whole months.

It allows you to play some games in 4K on the pro subscription level on hardware that wouldn't usually be capable of doing so, and even includes 5.1 audio if your connection is quick enough to support it. The normal Stadia tier offers 1080p streaming and stereo instead.

Google have said the rollout will happen over the next 48 hours in "14 countries", but didn't state specifically which ones, although we assume the US, UK and most of Europe will be included.

One caveat is that the streaming quality will be dropped temporarily due to Coronavirus, as services such as Netflix and YouTube have already done. The company say this won't be something most people will notice, but hopefully it does not turn people off the service before they buy.