Steam Link now allows streaming to multiple devices for local multiplayer

This week a new Steam client update rolled out, and then was updated and rolled out again with a workaround for a crash related to AMD drivers in Windows. Among the many notes are a couple of interesting things involving the Steam Link:

  • You can play local co-op by streaming to multiple devices simultaneously (high quality 5 GHz WiFi network required)
  • You can use your Android phone as a touch controller for games by tapping to disable audio and video in the Steam Link app 

The thought of trying to control Overcooked with a phone sets off my panic response, but new options for playing games with friends are always welcome.

Among the other updates to the client are tweaks to Steam chat, which will no longer try to start if you're in offline mode and now has an option to test your mic in the Friends Voice settings dialog. Fixes for Big Picture mode and some gamepad issues are also included, so if you were trying to get Nintendo Switch controllers to play nice with Steam but they stopped working every time the rumble went off, that's been solved now.

Full update notes are here.

Jody Macgregor
Weekend/AU Editor

Jody's first computer was a Commodore 64, so he remembers having to use a code wheel to play Pool of Radiance. A former music journalist who interviewed everyone from Giorgio Moroder to Trent Reznor, Jody also co-hosted Australia's first radio show about videogames, Zed Games. He's written for Rock Paper Shotgun, The Big Issue, GamesRadar, Zam, Glixel, Five Out of Ten Magazine, and Playboy.com, whose cheques with the bunny logo made for fun conversations at the bank. Jody's first article for PC Gamer was about the audio of Alien Isolation, published in 2015, and since then he's written about why Silent Hill belongs on PC, why Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale is the best fantasy shopkeeper tycoon game, and how weird Lost Ark can get. Jody edited PC Gamer Indie from 2017 to 2018, and he eventually lived up to his promise to play every Warhammer videogame.