Playing together with friends is an amazing thing to do at weekends, especially when holidays are near. There are three ways to play with friends, first direct online, second through LAN multiplayer and third is Co-op where two players can play together on a single console. However, all these three primary features of playing games together require a complete game and console support. For example games like Luigi’s Mansion 3 comes with in-built Co-op on Nintendo Switch, here two players with separate Joy-Con controllers can play controlling Luigi and Gooigi. Ghost Recon Breakpoint or Division 2 are two popular battle games where players can play through the internet, a Matching Making feature is a part of the game. The same goes for PUBG, Fortnite, etc. Local LAN multiplayer includes games like Counter-Strike and more.
Two of the primary features Co-op and LAN Multiplayer requires people to be in one place, while online multiplayer requires a high-speed internet connection, extra subscriptions like PS Plus, a console or a gaming pc. If you see this makes playing together a little tough and restrict the audience to limited grounds.
Steam came out with a unique idea of “REMOTE PLAY” what is Remote Play and how it works? We will try to solve all the common questions required Steams features, how it works and how to use Remote Play to play the game with friends in this article..
What is Remote Play, is it “Teamviewer” of Games?
Remote Play allows players to come together to play irrespective of their location. Remote play is more like a Teamviewer of Video Games, where on a PC when you start a game with the help of Remote Play you can share your screen with your friends by sending an invitation and allow them to control Keyboard or Mouse. This is more like Video Game Screen Sharing with Keyboard & Mouse control.
Remote Play requires a high-speed internet connection for smooth streaming of video screen on remote PC’s. Remote Play also allows sharing video, audio, and voice between players, using your Controllers. The best thing about Remote Play and why it is different from Teamviewer is it does not share your desktop view, as what the official site says. Yes, you have a top-secret folders or NSFW “video” on your screen you have nothing to fear.
What is Remote Play Anywhere, is it “Stadia” of Steam?
Steam also introduced Remote Play Anywhere a feature that brings Steam games on all platforms no matter if they like or not. According to the feature description, Remote Play Anywhere will let you play PC games on an Android Smartphone auto-optimized for touch. With this which has a dedicated app for Android, iOS and Raspberry Pi, you access and play all Steam games that you had “purchased”, on various platforms. To an extent, this sounds like xCloud or Stadia, where the player is independent to play games irrespective to their official launch platform.
Does this mean I can play Death Stranding on PC, if it was by Steam? Thank god Kojima released it only on PS4, I don’t want to break my fingers and head on this.
Back on Remote Play Anywhere do you think is this a smart move, streaming Steam games on a smartphone like Monster Hunter World could change a lot of things!
How to use Remote Play?
Remote play will help you to play Steam Games on the Mobile phone so here you have to do two things, First download and install Steam Link app on Android Smartphone tablet or on a iPhone, iPad from Apple App Store. There is an app for Rasperry Pi also.
How to Install Steam Link on Raspberry Pi –
- sudo apt update
- sudo apt install steamlink
You can launch it from the game menu or run Steam Link from the command line. After you are done with the app installation you have to connect your PC running Steam and then link it with Steam App.
Is Remote play a.k.a Steam Link is the best-est app to play PC games on Steam?
Nope, well I tried out a free game that was 100mb approx download, calling my network as slow Steam Link worked well but was sluggish. I wonder how will it work on games like Destiny 2. You need everything best here, like One Plus 7T, a 20mbps internet bandwidth and decent hardware for streaming. But it is extremely easy to use Steam Link. The mobile app connects with Steam PC software allowing us to play games, controls are not that optimized as promised. Hopefully, this might improve with time. There is a big difference between games you install and play on mobile or tablet compared to what I tested using the Steam’s Remote Play features. A big big big difference.
I see a lot of improvement is required here, especially when it is associated with controls. It’s a smart move by Steam to introduce a Remote Play just before xCloud and Stadia started shouting their features to consumers. Steam already has a massive audience and if this app is a hit I think it is enough to cut down the competition in upcoming Game Streaming era.
Everything is new and buggy right now, this feature demands high bandwidth + high-end hardware + patience + will power.
