Valve"s Steam client has been on the receiving end of many updates this year, including a full library redesign, algorithm changes, and a new labs section to test experimental features, among others. Today, Valve announced a new feature that will soon be hitting the Steam beta client named Remote Play Together. This will allow players to enjoy local multiplayer games over the internet with others.
When enabled, players will be streaming their game screen to other players over the internet. Owing all parties have good network bandwidth and manageable input delay, this will allow the external users to play the game on the host"s PC as "local" players "as though they were in the same room together," according to Valve.
This will cover all local multiplayer, local co-op, and split-screen games on Steam, and developers won"t need to update or change their creations at all to support it. Also, only the host will need to own the game to use the feature, as other players will simply be connecting to them.
Steam Remote Play Together is scheduled to hit Steam in beta form later this month.
Some might already know of products like Parsec that already offers services like this, but Valve implementing the feature straight into Steam - something that can easily be set up using the overlay - should have much further reach than a third-party solution.