Valve is adopting an interesting tactic with its new, still-unannounced MOBA shooter Deadlock. Gabe and co. have yet to acknowledge that such a game even exists, and yet for several months, invites to a closed playtest of Deadlock have reached thousands of Steam users' inboxes.
Everyone who's playing Deadlock has been instructed not to talk about it, though that hasn't stopped dozens of gameplay videos and impression threads from appearing online. Thousands of people are playing Deadlock every day, and by the look of it, the number of invites going out is on the rise.
Right now we know of two ways to gain access to Deadlock:
Deadlock playtesters can recommend their Steam friends for invites, but they have to provide that friend's email alongside their profile. Even a recommendation doesn't guarantee an invite—from what we've heard, most eventually do get in, but it can take a few days.
If you're not lucky enough to know a guy who knows a guy, then you may win the jackpot by doing nothing. Valve has been gradually sending out Deadlock invites in waves, and in the last week, the number of playtesters has skyrocketed. The invites really do appear random: it's safe to assume Valve was focused on getting feedback from experienced Dota 2 players early on, but recently, people with little-to-zero experience with Valve's multiplayer games have made the cut.
There's no evidence that you can juice your chances at a Deadlock invite by suddenly playing lots of Dota, as some attempted with CS:GO during Counter-Strike 2's playtest last year, so no need to waste the energy. Mathematically, your chances get better every day. In early August, Deadlock reached a record 18,000 concurrent players. A week later, its new peak is now over 34,000.
So if you're eager to play Deadlock, keep a close eye on your Steam notifications and email inbox associated with your account.
