Steam’s Remote Play Together has officially been released, making the problems generally associated with trying to pair long-distance friends with local co-op games a thing of the past. Not only that, but Steam is celebrating its launch by offering discounts on all the games that would benefit from this new feature.
With Remote Play Together, the owner of the game "hosts" other players. Performance-wise, it's similar to watching a stream - but with the added ability to control the second, third, etc. character from wherever you are (with an internet connection, of course). Best of all, only one person needs to own the game in order to play with everyone over Remote Play Together.
We actually tried Remote Play Together once before it officially released. Surprisingly, it worked right out of the box.
It’s very similar to joining your friends the normal way on Steam, using the Shift + Tab function to open up the Steam Overlay and right clicking the person you want to join. Minimal assembly required.
Now I know what some of you are thinking: “There must be some sort of delay.” We actually didn’t experience any noticeable issues. According to Valve “you can tune streaming resolution and bitrate for the best experience on your setup with Advanced Settings. Over a 5 GHz network, our target is a resolution of 1080p at 60 frames per second, with good quality for most scenes.”
Good job, Valve. You’ve made me a proud pc gamer boy.
