Deadlock, the upcoming MOBA shooter developed by Valve, was a very open secret in video game circles despite never being announced. Valve changed that over the weekend by quietly releasing a tiny teaser and publishing the store page, which is as good an announcement as any.
The store page is still very bare when it comes to information. It says Deadlock is an action game that’s in “early development,” and it’s only available to playtesters and through friend invites. There’s also a little art, including the aforementioned teaser, although it comes with a disclaimer that the art assets could be “temporary.”
Players can now wish list it though, and if third-party tracking site SteamDB is any indication, they have been in droves. At the time of this writing, it’s 59th in terms of wish lists and has over 42,000 followers.
Deadlock’s life cycle has been unconventional so far. It was the subject of multiple detailed leaks before it started amassing high concurrent player counts on Steam. People were being invited to playtest it and those people could send out invites to their friends, so its player base steadily grew behind the scenes. It had over 2,000 concurrent players by the time August hit, and hit its highest peak so far at 89,203 players on Sunday.
Valve did try to stop people from sharing gameplay online. According to The Verge, players saw an “early development build” message after booting up the game that read: “Do not share anything about the game with anyone.” You could agree to it, but it wasn’t legally binding and you could just close the window and continue playing. So, yes, there are a lot of screenshots and details out there if you want to find them. There are even people streaming it on Twitch.
Deadlock is a 6v6 hero shooter like Overwatch on a MOBA-like map with multiple lanes and minions like League of Legends. It feels like Valve included everything but the kitchen sink, with a mix of some traits from its other titles like Team Fortress 2 and Dota 2, and elements like guardrails from titles like Apex Legends that encourage fast and dynamic map traversal. Valve hasn’t revealed any plans for the game beyond playtesting, but if the leaks and streamers are anything to go by, Deadlock certainly has an audience it can capitalize on.
