Dragon Quest XI S surprise launched on Stadia today, more games coming - Android

One of the biggest and best traditional JRPGs of recent memory just dropped on Stadia out of nowhere.

What you need to know

• Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes of Elusive Age - Definitive Edition is out now on Stadia.
• For a limited time it's only $32.
• FIFA 21 and Terraria also launching this week.
• NBA 2K21 is free for Stadia Pro subscribers from today until March 23.

Surprise! Google revealed today out of nowhere that the excellent JRPG from Square Enix, Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes of an Elusive Age - Definitive Edition, is now available on Stadia. Dragon Quest (originally known as Dragon Warrior in the West) is the series that originated the entire JRPG genre and is still going strong to this day. The latest entry is a sweeping 100+ hour long epic with traditional style turn-based combat and gorgeous visuals. You can grab it for a limited time for just $32 from Stadia—typically it'll cost $40 after March 30. This should immediately become one of the best Stadia games if the port is solid.

Additionally, Stadia is also getting both FIFA 21 tomorrow and Terraria on Thursday. FIFA 21 from EA is the second sports title from he publishing giant, following Madden NFL 21 earlier this year. Globally, FIFA is one of the most popular game franchises each and every year and is a big grab for Google assuming it will start releasing on the same day and date as other platforms with future entries.

Terraria on the other hand is a Minecraft-like sandbox building game, except it takes place from a side scrolling 2D perspective. It plays out a little bit like Mario and Zelda mixed with Minecraft and is one of the most successful indie games of all-time with millions of sales across every platform.

If you're hungry for more sports games on Stadia though, then luckily for you NBA 2K21 is free for all Stadia Pro subscribers starting today and lasting until March 23. That's over a week of free basketball.

Despite a rocky start to the year, Stadia has a lot of runway in front of itself to recover. With over 100 games coming to Stadia this year, including big AAA releases like Far Cry 6 and Outriders (coming April 1) to look forward to, in addition to a slew of smaller games like Blue Fire and Trine 4, there's a lot to get excited about.

Everything you need

Stadia Premiere Edition

$100 at Best Buy $100 at Google Store

A good way to start

You can play games on Stadia without any fees or hardware charges on your phone and PC right now, but grabbing the Stadia controller is your best option for couch gaming via Chromecast. With support for Android, iOS, web browsers, and of course Chromecast, the Stadia controller is a great option for enjoying all that Google's cloud-gaming service has to offer no matter which device you're on.