Valve’s Deadlock Instantly Rockets To 90,000 Players After Official Announcement

You might say there’s hero shooter fatigue in the industry right now. Hell, I’ve said it myself and it often seems proven true (RIP Concord). But sometimes it’s…not true at all. It’s very game dependent, whether that’s the stylized superheroes of Marvel Rivals or now, the new heroes of Valve’s Deadlock.

The debut of Deadlock was something of a mess, with The Verge writing a story detailing every aspect of the early test before everyone else since no one was actually sent an NDA or real embargo when playing. Deadlock had something like 20,000 players before it was even officially announced due to a widespread invite system, and now? That has skyrocketed to 90,000 concurrent players on Steam now that Valve has officially announced it. And that is still within an invite system.

Even Valve’s official debut, actually listing the game on the store, is still incredibly tepid. It’s not even what you could even call “promotion” just…literally acknowledgement it exists. Here’s the entire “About this game” section:

EARLY DEVELOPMENT BUILD – Deadlock is still in early development stages with lots of temporary art and experimental gameplay.

LIMITED ACCESS – Access to Deadlock is currently limited to friend invites via our playtesters.

It is in fact very early, earlier than a lot of games would be even in a closed alpha, but it is very much resonating with fans despite Valve’s lack of enthusiasm in promotion. It has no release date, but it’s…a new shooter from Valve. Valve! Who barely makes games anymore! It’s a very big deal in the industry, and with 90,000 players with a barely live version restricted by an invite “playtesting” situation, you can easily see how it could be come a true monster in the new future if Valve opens it up more and adds to it as time goes on. Meanwhile, players are watching streams, making character tier lists, the whole thing as if it’s officially launched.

It’s an odd situation because there is just no roadmap at all for what’s going to happen with Deadlock from here. And if it does not make meaningful progress or open up to more players, this early surge of interest may wither. But one thing is clear, it’s a game that tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of people are itching to play, and Valve may want to be a little more reactive to that if they do in fact have big long-term plans for Deadlock.

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