How to get into Deadlock playtest: Valve’s early access Alpha explained

Deadlock’s not-so-secret hero shooter MOBA is well into its playtest, but the playtest is quite exclusive to get into.

With tens of thousands of players online and its gameplay footage steadily leaking since May, Valve has finally publicly acknowledged the existence of its new game.

Now getting recognition from its creators, Deadlock’s hype has been mounting. With the player count steadily growing, you may be interested in checking it out during early access, and this is how you can get in.

How to play Deadlock early

Currently, there are two main ways to get into Deadlock early, either be randomly invited by Valve or receiving an invite from a friend.

Getting a random invite from Valve is the harder option as you’ll just need to get lucky, and with the large amount of Steam accounts floating around your chances are quite small. However, invites are being sent out regularly, so as the days go on, the odds are slowly building for you.

Additionally, a friend who already has access to the game can recommend Steam friends for invites, but that doesn’t guarantee they’ll get an invitation from Valve.

The second option involves Deadlock’s subreddit, which has a mega thread where you can ask for invites. If you’re lost on how to get one and you really want to play, the Reddit thread is your best bet.

You must keep in mind, though, that you’ll have to add whoever gets you in as a friend, and you could get banned if the person who brought you in were to get caught cheating.

Valve finally putting up a Steam store page also indicates that it’ll be available to the public soon. Keep an eye on this page for more details as it gets updated, and perhaps news on when we can expect the game to go public.

How to invite friends

If you’ve already got access and want to invite friends, simply follow the steps below:

1. Head into the main menu.
2. In the bottom right you’ll see a blue box saying “Have friends who you’d like to play with in our playtests?” Click on ‘Invite your Friends’.
3. Click on the Steam name you want to invite.
4. Within 1-2 days they should get the invite, although it may appear sooner.

And with that, you’re one step closer to having all your friends in Deadlock. Just be sure to add them as a friend on Steam beforehand.

How long is the playtest?

Currently, there is no official end date for the playtest.

However, during the beta, there were time slots for each region where players could play matchmaking, usually 12 hours of the day, which essentially capped how long each day’s beta test would run.

On September 12’s update, the timezones were removed, with now matchmaking being active 24/7.

If it’s anything like Counter-Strike 2’s closed beta, it will be active until the full release, but there’s no official launch date for Deadlock just yet. As soon as we know more about when the playtest will end, we’ll be sure to update this page.

That’s all you need to know about the early access playtest for Deadlock. For more on the game, check out our character tier list, and the best builds for Vindicta, Infernus, Pocket, and Shiv.