March 22 | Steam Update: Remote Play Together - Invite Anyone has shipped!

[Christen]

Now in Beta, you can Remote Play Together with anyone – no Steam account needed to join your game with the click of a link.

UPDATES:

• 3/22: Invite Anyone has shipped to all Steam users! Thanks for testing!
  
• 3/2: Steam Link for Linux now available - Invite anyone on Linux to join you
  
• 3/1: Invite as many friends as your game and internet connection will support!

To try the new functionality, opt into the Steam Client Beta. Once updated, you'll find a COPY LINK button in your Friends list whenever you play one of the thousands of games with support for Steam Remote Play Together.

To quickly access your own games with support for Remote Play Together, click the advanced filtering options icon in your Library, then select Remote Play Together under Features. You can even hit Save to create a Dynamic Collection.

When you're ready to play, launch your game, then grab an invite link from your Friends list in the Steam Overlay. Send the link to your friend on Windows, iOS, Android, or Raspberry Pi and they can click your invite to join in the fun.

We hope you'll give the new Invite Anyone feature a try, then join us here in the discussions to share your feedback.

Additional Info
Invite Anyone with a link and your friend will be invited to install the Steam Link app before connecting. Once installed, Steam Link enables a quick connection to your game session. If your friend has Steam installed, it will instead be used to facilitate the session.

One player may be invited to your Remote Play Together game session via link, no Steam account needed. Additional Steam Friends may be invited to your game by right-clicking them in your Friends List, then selecting Remote Play Together.

Players with their own controllers will be able to immediately join in the fun. If you have your own controller as the host, you can choose to share control of your keyboard and mouse with a remote player in the Steam Overlay.

[maximiano14]

hope this one works, we are bleeding people to other services that offer better service.

[✪ Anarchy]

y

[XDeadzX]

The final step would be to allow us to ignore remote play together toggles by devs and steam would be my one stop shop for playing with friends.

Nothing better than handing control over to your buddy when you're stuck on a hard part. But this will do for now.
___

So far anyone-invites work great! Sampled a short game of pacman co-op with a phone user who's never used steam. Not the most rigorous but it's functional.

[Andreas]

Originally posted by Christen:

Now in Beta, you can Remote Play Together with anyone – no Steam account needed to join your game with the click of a link.

Big news thanks Christen

[ANeM]

Originally posted by XDeadzX:

The final step would be to allow us to ignore remote play together toggles by devs and steam would be my one stop shop for playing with friends.

Couldn't agree more. I've got a bunch of narrative driven adventure games I've wanted to play with friends via Broadcasting, but the latency on that is too high. Waiting 10 seconds before you can start discussing a choice in The Walking Dead doesn't really work.

Remote Play Together would be perfect, but while it can be a lot of fun to play those games with friends none of them count as "local multiplayer" and so it can't be done.

[Tev]

Originally posted by maximiano14:

hope this one works, we are bleeding people to other services that offer better service.

Like what?

I don't know any PC platform that offers as many features as Steam does.

If Epic's free games sways you, then you do you.

Funnily enough though, Steam has had record highs on active users, so it's hard to say it's exactly bleeding users.

[Shadowlet]

Originally posted by Tev:

Originally posted by maximiano14:

hope this one works, we are bleeding people to other services that offer better service.

Like what?

Parsec

[Razumen]

Originally posted by Shadowlet:

Originally posted by Tev:

Like what?

Parsec

Parsec isn't a competitor to Steam...

[the city of fools]

Originally posted by Razumen:

Originally posted by Shadowlet:

Parsec

Parsec isn't a competitor to Steam...

The guy was talking about how Steam is bleeding people when it comes to Remote Play to Parsec. As in, the people aren't leaving Steam entirely (still need it to play the game), but Parsec is preferred over Steam Remote Play Together as a feature.

[Nanotechnician]

Originally posted by Shadowlet:

Originally posted by Tev:

Like what?

Parsec

wow, Parsec was launched ages before this was even a remote idea...

[Wincest]

Would be pretty cool if we could invite more than 1 non-Steam user.

[Zoral]

This is a fantastic addition,I have many console player friends who refuse to install steam or any other broadcast software with an account creation for remote play,removing that barrier is a step in the right direction

Now if that feature was also a thing for normal steam broadcasting it would make the feature finally useful for most people, sharing your gameplay with little to no delay is what people are looking for nowadays , I can understand that remote play can be a sensitive topic for devs so that's why there is a toggle for it,but there is no reason to restrict all that good tech you're adding to steam broadcast ! at least that's my opinion

[Liquidus]

Originally posted by Christen:

Now in Beta, you can Remote Play Together with anyone – no Steam account needed to join your game with the click of a link.

To try the new functionality, opt into the Steam Client Beta. Once updated, you'll find a COPY LINK button in your Friends list whenever you play one of the thousands of games with support for Steam Remote Play Together.

To quickly access your own games with support for Remote Play Together, click the advanced filtering options icon in your Library, then select Remote Play Together under Features. You can even hit Save to create a Dynamic Collection.

When you're ready to play, launch your game, then grab an invite link from your Friends list in the Steam Overlay. Send the link to your friend on Windows, iOS, Android, or Raspberry Pi and they can click your invite to join in the fun.

We hope you'll give the new Invite Anyone feature a try, then join us here in the discussions to share your feedback.

Additional Info
Invite Anyone with a link and your friend will be invited to install the Steam Link app before connecting. Once installed, Steam Link enables a quick connection to your game session. If your friend has Steam installed, it will instead be used to facilitate the session.

One player may be invited to your Remote Play Together game session via link, no Steam account needed. Additional Steam Friends may be invited to your game by right-clicking them in your Friends List, then selecting Remote Play Together.

Players with their own controllers will be able to immediately join in the fun. If you have your own controller as the host, you can choose to share control of your keyboard and mouse with a remote player in the Steam Overlay.

@Christen

Please correct your Group announcement post (displayed via Steam activity log) to mention the "Steam Link" App. There is no mention of it, and it may lead people to think Remote Play is possible via only the Web Browser.

[Xjph]

Originally posted by Christen:

To quickly access your own games with support for Remote Play Together, click the advanced filtering options icon in your Library, then select Remote Play Together under Features. You can even hit Save to create a Dynamic Collection.

Please remove this ridiculous restriction of which games are allowed to use Remote Play Together.

[Bandit Heeler]

This feature is awesome! Thanks so much Valve!

Haven't had the chance to try it out yet since people are sleeping but a couple feedback regardless:

1) When a friend on Steam accepts an invite NOT to join a voice call, the host still attempts a voice call regardless which forces the invitee to hear the damn call ringing tone. If the invitee accepts the invite but NOT the call, there shouldn't be any attempts of a voice call at all.

2) Maybe have an option in Steam settings to show host's screen when they Alt+Tab/Shift+Tab/switch focus from the game? I know some friends said it's jarring to them to see the game and the wait screen if the host is trying to find a fix for controllers. At the end of the day you're Remote Playing with friends that you would hopefully trust. If anything, share screen and but DISABLE INPUT by default. Just add an overlay stating Remote Play Inputs are disabled.

3) Please, please, PLEASE work on Steam Friends/Group Chat functionality. Make it such that we can drop a link into Group Chats to make mass invitations a lot easier.

4) Moreso: PLEASE work on the Steam Chat app. This is literally THE perfect time to do it. Fix the issue with the application crashing when trying to send an image (on Android at least). And also: ADD VOICE CHAT TO THE STEAM CHAT APP! It makes zero sense to use the Steam Chat app to accept game invites whilst having to rely on another application to be a part of a voice call!