Two of the most relevant and innovative features of the PS4 are Remote Play on PS Vita and Share Play. Both features are great, but each comes with its set of challenge.

Remote Play features a very slight lag, but the biggest problem is that the Vita's thumbsticks and touch controls don't even come close to the precision of the DualShock 4. Share Play suffer from arguably relevant lag, especially on long distances, and if the connection quality is bad, you often get stutters and artifacts on screen that increases the difficulty of simply seeing what's happening on the screen.

Those issues are normally very bearable while playing nowaday's average game, with a rather low level of challenge and precision requirements. Bloodborne isn't your average game. It requires timing and precision, and is the perfect test bed for Sony's gameplay streaming features.

That's why we set out to test a fight against the Cleric Beast using both features.

The first test uses local Remote Play on an old model PS Vita 1000. The second tests Share Play across the Atlantic Ocean, with me playing as a guest from Milano, Italy, and my colleague Ryan Meitzer hosting from Fair Lawn, New Jersey. The distance is roughly 6,500 Km (4,000 miles)

To make things more challenging, my connection is utterly abysmal. So much that it's barely sufficient for Share Play (and that often makes me lose connection, or be unable to start it at all) due to the terrible 1 Mb/s upstream which is pretty much the standard here in Italy.

Below you can see my pitiful speedtest.

SharePlay

In order to make sure that the test was balanced, I create new hunters for each session. Both were just run through the initial level in Central Yarnham, given blood vials and bullets and the armor you can find in the sewers. No leveling whatsoever was done.

The purpose of the tests was simple: check out the viability of Remote Play and Share Play with challenging games, and especially Share Play was tested basically in the worst conditions possible.

To that you can add that I'm not even close to the best Bloodborne/Souls player you'll find out there, so if I manage, pretty much everyone can.

Did I ptrevail, or maybe I was devoured by the Cleric Beast? If you're curious, you can check out the videos below: