How to Get Invited to Valve’s Deadlock Playtest

Valve’s secret new 6v6 tactical shooter, Deadlock, is finally drawing attention with its playtest garnering 20,000+ concurrent players. While Valve might have had their hands forced on the playtest, the game has been a massively positive experience for its testers. The game has similarities to games like Overwatch, Dota 2, and Team Fortress 2, which is a given because some of these games are theirs in the first place. Here’s how you can join the party and get invited to Valve’s Deadlock playtest.

How to Get a Playtest Key for Deadlock

Valve’s Deadlock game is still a secret. As of this writing, it isn’t even visible on their Steam store, even if you are part of the Deadlock playtest already. The playtest was given to selected publishing companies and other community members to play in secret. When Deadlock was leaked, playtest players were able to invite friends to the playtest.

So far, the only way to get a playtest key for Deadlock is by getting an invitation from someone already in the playtest or from Valve. If someone you know is part of the playtest, they can invite a player to the playtest through their Steam’s friend list. There’s a button on the lower right of the main menu screen that opens up your Steam friend list, and you can invite anyone to the playtest.

There doesn’t seem to be a limit to how many you can invite to the playtest, which means that this will snowball pretty quickly until thousands of players get it. The duration of Deadlock’s playtest is still unknown. However, judging from how other Valve games went through their closed beta testing, like Dota 2 and Artifact, players should have access to the game until it is released with short maintenance and breaks.

If you are looking for other FPS games that have a big patch, Escape from Tarkov’s 0.15 patch wipe is coming, as well as Overwatch’s season 12 with new legendary skins and a new hero.