Through private playtest invites, Valve is letting players test out its newest game Deadlock. It's the first new Valve title since Half-Life Alyx in 2020. About 18,250 people seem to currently be able to play the game through Valve's playtest programme.

More than four years after Half-Life Alyx, Steam provider Valve is showing of its next game, at least to a selected crowd.

With private playtest invites, Valve has rolled out the first version of its new game Deadlock on Steam covertly. Currently, the game has no Steam store page, but several users have found playtest invites and were able to install and play the game since yesterday in playtest intervals between 16:00 p.m. and 03:00 a.m. CET on weekdays and 14:00 p.m. to 03:00 a.m on weekends.

The game is a 6-vs-6 hero shooter multiplayer game from the 3rd person perspective. How many playtest keys Valve has sent out and what the criteria were for invitation isn’t official, but according to SteamDB, in the not even 24 hours since release about 18,250 players have played Deadlock together concurrently.

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Pascal Wagner
Pascal Wagner is Chief of Relations of GamesMarket and Senior Editor specialised in indie studios, politics, funding and academic coverage.
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