Upcoming Steam feature will add online support for all local multiplayer games

[midian182]

Something to look forward to: An interesting new feature is coming to Steam that will allow users to play local multiplayer games over the internet. Valve’s Alden Kroll confirmed Remote Play Together and explained a little more about the feature.

As reported by PC Gamer, the Remote Play Together feature was announced on the Steamworks website, which is only accessible to developers, but a couple shared the information publicly. It will enter Steam beta in the week of October 21, where it will allow "two or more players to enjoy local multiplayer games over the internet, together."

Valve’s Alden Kroll says the feature is primarily designed for local split-screen or shared-screen games and works by streaming a host’s screen to their friend, capturing their input, and sending it back to the game running on the host’s machine.

To clarify: it really is only for shared-screen or split-screen games. The tech is streaming your screen to your friend and capturing their input and sending it back to the game, so you are both playing the same game, looking at the same thing.

— Alden Kroll GCAP / PAX Australia (@aldenkroll) 10 October 2019

"All local multiplayer, local co-op and split-screen games will be automatically included in the Remote Play Together beta,” reads the announcement.

Other companies have tried to implement something similar. Nvidia's GeForce Experience used to offer GameStream co-op, which, in addition to allowing co-op play over the internet, let friends watch someone else playing a game, and could mirror the controls of a host PC on a guest PC. Sony’s Share Play feature on the PS4 also lets people play with friends as if they were in the same room.

Initial reaction to the feature seems very positive, with many commentators stating they’re looking forward to the arrival of Remote Play Together. It could also give people another reason to side with Steam in its ongoing rivalry with the Epic Games Store.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/82280-upcoming-steam-feature-add-online-support-local-multiplayer.html

 

[avioza]

I think this is a neat feature. I mostly play legacy titles and it would be nice to play some of those games more easily with friends.

I would like to see GOG implement something like this.

 

[IAMTHESTIG]

That is very cool... and perhaps quite useful for those of us who don't want to mess around with dedicated servers and VPN's to make this happen.

You know what else would be equally cool, the other direction - a feature to make online only games be able to do a LAN mode. Myself and about 12-16 other friends still host bi-annual LAN parties. Unfortunately nearly all the new games don't have LAN, so we either suffer with the pains of trying to get playing the game online, or we play older games. We mostly play older games...

 

[Markoni35]

I want to get away from Steam (and similar services), or find non-Steam versions of certain games. Definitely don't want to introduce Steam even there where it wasn't present.

 

[Daithi]

I'm a little disappointed it's only for shared screen/splitscreen, you could probably count every PC game with either of those on one hand. I thought it was going to be like hamachi or one of those where you can play LAN games online.