Deadlock, an upcoming PvP shooter in development at Valve, has seen a spike in active players during its limited playtest. What’s even more impressive is that the company has yet to confirm the game’s existence.
A screenshot from a leaked visual novel based on Deadlock
As first spotted by SteamDB on social media, Deadlock’s concurrent player count started steadily increasing over the weekend. As a result, the game peaked at 16,947 CCU on Steam yesterday.
That was almost enough to break into the top 100 most played titles on the platform, with Deadlock ranking 107th — above The Finals (24-hour peak of 16.9k CCU) and Stellaris (16.4k CCU), but below games like Forza Horizon 4 (17.3k CCU) and Sea of Thieves (17.4k CCU).
Deadlock emerged in May 2024, when content creator Gabe Follower claimed that Valve was working on a new shooter previously codenamed Neon Prime and Citadel. After that, the first screenshots and footage started leaking online, with Tyler McVicker saying that hundreds of people were already testing the game.
Although Valve kept a low profile, it filed a trademark application for Deadlock on May 30. The company continued to run closed alpha tests, with the game peaking at nearly 2,700 concurrent players in July.
At the moment, Deadlock is still in closed testing. Players can access it by receiving an invitation from Valve, and those with keys can then invite their friends on Steam (hence the growing number of concurrent users). As more people get their hands on the game, more footage and other stuff (e.g. a visual novel with in-game characters) leak online. Interestingly, Valve doesn’t rush to block the content from its unannounced project.
Deadlock is a third-person hero-based PvP shooter with elements of MOBA and tower defense games. Two teams (6 vs. 6) fight on a map divided into several lanes. While this combination of genres looks intriguing, it is still unclear when Valve will officially announce the game.