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Tens of thousands of people have been playing Deadlock, a new multiplayer shooter from Valve, for the past several months, but in that time there’s been no official announcement or acknowledgement of the game’s existence by its creators. Until now. Valve have posted an extremely barebones Steam store page for Deadlock, describing it as a “multiplayer game in early development.”
“Deadlock is still in early development stages with lots of temporary art and experimental gameplay,” says the page. “Access to Deadlock is currently limited to friend invites via our playtesters.” The page a lso contains a single 22 second teaser trailer and no screenshots.
Deadlock is being played by 63,000 people at the time of writing, however. Previously those with access to the beta were asked “not share anything about the game with anyone,” although inevitably footage did leak out into the wider web. That restriction has now been fully lifted, with people posting thoughts and more videos across the internet.
It sounds as if Deadlock is a mixture of Dota and Super Monday Night Combat; a third-person, 6v6 multiplayer shooter with lanes, respawning creeps, and a skyrail transit system.
I’ve seen it argued that it’s bizarre for Valve not to announce a game so many people are clearly playing, but frankly I can understand the decision. Valve are known for cancelling projects during development, and as a genre, a lot of multiplayer shooters seem to stumble during their beta phase. How many games have Ubisoft announced in the last five years, for example, only to cancel the moment players touched themn? My only disappointment is that Valve didn’t find a more interesting name than “Deadlock” before making it official.