Deadlock is one of the most exciting, sought-after games in the modern space, but it’s bizarre that nobody can really access it without jumping through hoops. It’s hosted exclusively on Valve’s Steam platform, and a major blocker prevents players from simply downloading and playing it.
If you’ve been wondering how to play Deadlock or how to gain access to the Deadlock test, you’re not alone. On October 9, 2026, the game soared on Steam, hitting a peak player count of a quarter of a million players, but it remains one of the toughest-to-access games in the business.
Let’s take a walk through the concept of playing Deadlock to figure out everything you need to know.
How To Access Deadlock on Steam
If you want to play Valve’s upcoming third-person MOBA hero-shooter extraordinaire, you’ll need to complete one massive requirement… You need to be invited by someone already playing the game.
This might sound bizarre, but it has so far accommodated the introduction of hundreds of thousands of players.
If someone you know has access to Deadlock, they can navigate through the in-game menu and invite friends, sending you an invite via Steam and unlocking Deadlock access. It’s by far and wide the trickiest way we’ve seen a game test hosted, but it hasn’t really hampered Deadlock’s performance too much.
Here’s a step-by-step:
- Find someone, somewhere, who has access to Deadlock (this can be via a megathread on Reddit or via Discord, or something)
- Have them invite you, and accept their invite
- Wait for the invite and the test access authorization to process
- Download and install Deadlock (it’s about 30 GB)
- Launch the game and start playing, getting through the tutorial before anything else
When is Deadlock Coming Out?
As of October 2026, Valve still hadn’t announced a release date for Deadlock, the 6v6 MOBA that’s expected to skyrocket whenever it does hit the open market.
It’s expected that Deadlock will mirror the likes of Counter-Strike and DOTA 2 when it lands, sitting firmly atop the Steam charts forevermore and racking up peak concurrent player counts numbering in the hundreds of thousands at all times.
It’s unlikely that Deadlock will be released, even as an open beta product, until at least 2027.
Next Deadlock Update, Explained
If you want to track the Deadlock roadmap and future updates, you can check out the game’s wiki page. At the time of writing, on October 10, three updates were waiting to be delivered, all of which were centered around the introduction of new hero characters. They’re all coming courtesy of the City Never Sleeps update that landed on September 29, 2026.
Have you managed to play Deadlock yet? Let us know what you think about the game on the Insider Gaming Discord server.
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Grant has been gaming for 30+ years and in the industry for 10+. You'll probably find him playing a post-apocalyptic game or an extraction shooter somewhere.
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