Valve Quietly Announces Super-Secret Hero Shooter Deadlock Months After People Started Playing It

Deadlock is official. The multiplayer shooter that thousands of players have been testing on Steam but not been allowed to talk about now has its own store page that’s mostly full of information about how the game could drastically change at any moment.

“Deadlock is a multiplayer game in early development,” reads Valve’s official description. “Deadlock is in early development with lots of temporary art and experimental gameplay,” reads another disclaimer. “Access is currently limited to friend invite via our playtesters.” The competitive game’s user-generated tags include MOBA, third-person shooter, team-based, and cute.

The Steam page went up late on Friday, over a week after the floodgates opened on players invited to test the game talking about it online. People are excited about Deadlock in part because of the bizarre fig-leaf of secrecy that’s surrounded it, with thousands of people playing it prior to any official announcement, but also because it has the potential to really shake up a genre of online shooter dominated by existing franchises like Overwatch 2, Apex Legends, and Valorant.

Each of those offers a slightly different flavor of the hero-based shooter experience, but Deadlock’s MOBA elements sound like a drastic departure from the familiar formula, with heroes leveling up stats over the course of a match and leading small armies of AI-controlled grunts against the opposing team until their giant death-ray-wielding robot is destroyed. For fans of Team Fortress 2, Dota 2, and even Artifact, Valve’s defunct attempt to reinvent Magic: The Gathering with MOBA elements, it sounds like Deadlock places an exciting layer of RPG and strategy elements on top of your standard Call of Duty deathmatch.

Unfortunately, the new store page doesn’t give any further indication of when most fans will actually get to play Deadlock. The current test sessions are still invite only, so you need a friend who’s already playing to get you in the door. Hopefully Valve actually revealing the game for real means access will expand in the coming months. Though knowing Valve, it’s just as possible Deadlock’s barebones Steam page stays that way for another year as its developers continue tinkering under the hood before its ready for prime time.