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.

Share this post

Written by

Pascal Wagner
Pascal Wagner is Chief of Relations of GamesMarket and Senior Editor specialised in indie studios, politics, funding and academic coverage.
Daedalic Achieves Historic Publishing Success in Its 20th Anniversary Year
Jonas Hüsges (COO), Carsten Fichtelmann (CEO) and Martin Ditter (CFO). © Daedalic Entertainment

Daedalic Achieves Historic Publishing Success in Its 20th Anniversary Year

By Marcel Kleffmann 2 min read
"Cool... but Dad, How Can I Actually Land Now?"
Johannes Roth has been Mimimi's MD from founding to closure. His solo project brings back his love for coding from being a kid - through his kids (all photos: Johannes Roth Core Production).

"Cool... but Dad, How Can I Actually Land Now?"

By Pascal Wagner 9 min read
Applications for Gamecity Hamburg Prototype Funding 2026
The Gamecity Hamburg Prototype Funding 2026 Awarding Committee comprises the following individuals: Michael Schade (CEO and Co-Founder of Rockfish Games), Valentina Birke (Director of Indie Arena Booth), Karsten Schwaiger (Head of the Hamburg Ministry of Culture and Media's Media and Digital Economy division), Nina Müller (Goodgame Studios' VP of Publishing & Development Services), Jonas Hüsges (COO of Daedalic Entertainment), and Dennis Schoubye (Head of Gamecity Hamburg).

Applications for Gamecity Hamburg Prototype Funding 2026

By Marcel Kleffmann 2 min read
Epic Games Acquires Meshcapade and Will Establish a Presence in Tübingen
The technology developed by Meshcapade is based on the SMPL (Skinned Multi-Person Linear) body model, which was developed by the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems. This model provides a 3D representation of the human form and was trained using thousands of 3D body scans. © Meshcapade

Epic Games Acquires Meshcapade and Will Establish a Presence in Tübingen

By Marcel Kleffmann 3 min read