Valve’s next game, which has yet to be officially announced, had more than 16,000 concurrent players over the weekend. As of this writing, that number sits at 22,400 per SteamDB. The game is called Deadlock and we know that Valve has been working on it for a while, but now it looks like we’re in the middle of a soft launch of some sort.
Also, this game has not been officially announced by the company, although something is happening. It is possible that Valve opened the game to play tests to measure how successful the title could be with the right PR push behind it, as shown Eurogamer and others. These numbers are quite surprising when you consider, you know, Deadlock yet to be confirmed by the company.
So what Deadlock? A competitive MOBA shooter, billed as “the next Dota” by veteran Valve reporter Tyler McVicker. It has reportedly been in development since 2018 and is a partnership with IceFrog, the unnamed creator behind the original. Defense of the Ancients mode of Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos that started it all Dota it was madness.
By all accounts, Deadlock it is already in an advanced state of development, given the strong number of simultaneous players. McVicker describes it as looking “like A hero, Overwatch, Dota 2 again Team Fortress 2 she had a child.”
As testers started sharing Deadlock screenshots all over the place, here are the ones I can confirm, featuring one of the heroes called Gray Talon. pic.twitter.com/KdZSRxObSz
— Gabe Follower (@gabefollower) May 17, 2024
After this article was originally published, an Engadget writer received an invitation for a playtest, and he can confirm many leaked details about the game. There are currently 20 heroes to choose from, and you can enter sandbox mode to try out each of them. You can even browse the matches in progress to watch and get a better feel for things before you’re ready to dive in. The playtest plot shows that the servers are open every day, at least 12 hours a day.
While Valve has yet to officially announce Deadlockprobably waiting for a surprise drop of some kind, the company made a trademark back in June. So that’s something. With over 22,000 guys, it won’t be long before we all know more about this game.
Update, August 13, 3:30PM ET: This story has been updated after publication with a brief explanation of what Valve is Deadlock playtest includes. The number of concurrent players in the title and article has also been updated to reflect the game’s current player count. The original article said there were over 16,000 players.
