How to make custom lobbies in Deadlock

Getting into an online match in Deadlock is easy, but making a custom lobby is much more complex, so here’s how you can make your own.

Since Deadlock is still in early access, there are a lot of kinks Valve is ironing out, which is why the game has been regularly getting massive updates that shake up the entire experience.

Be it the plethora of hero and item balances, map and gameplay changes, or the addition of a new reporting system, the devs are constantly touching it up.

Although you may be noticing a lack of a custom lobby feature in Deadlock, one does exist, but it’s not exactly advertised.

So if you’re planning on exploring the map or wanting to create a private match with some friends, here’s how you can create a custom lobby in Deadlock.

How to create a custom match in Deadlock

You need to type “private_lobby_create” in Deadlock’s console command to open up the custom lobby screen. To open the command console, you need to press F7, or whatever button you have bound it to.

Once you’ve typed it into the console, you’ll be brought into the custom lobby menu.

You’ll have two teams, The Amber Hand and The Sapphire Flame you can place all 12 players. For a player to go into one of the teams, they’ll just need to click on an empty slot.

Directly to its right are some simple match settings. You’ll have the options of which server the lobby will be hosted in and the choice of no bots or bots with three types of difficulties; easy, medium, and hard.

If you want players to join the lobby, you can do two things. Either directly invite them from your friends list or send them the invite code which can be found in the match settings.

There are only two spectator slots, so if you’re running proper matches and want some observers, that’s where they will go. Unassigned slots are for the rest of the lobby who aren’t playing or aren’t spectating.

To start up the game, all players, including the spectators, will need to press the ready button, which will ask you to pick your heroes. Once everyone has picked their heroes, you’ll just need to hit the start match button below.

From there, the match will start and you can play on as normal, or do whatever you want in the map, be it exploring it or experimenting with a hero.