Valve’s worst-kept secret is no longer a secret

If you read Ars Technica regularly, you’ve known since May that Valve is working on Deadlock, a mishmash of genres that has been slowly amassing SteamDB-tracked players through an invite-only playtest. Over the weekend, Valve took the “hiding” part out of that “hiding-in-plain-sight” test, launching a bare bones Steam page for Deadlock, the company’s first attempt at developing a new gaming franchise since collectible card game Artifact launched in 2018 (and fell apart in 2021).
The new page, which went up on Saturday, has precious little information about Deadlock, save for a description as “a multiplayer game in early development” and a 22-second trailer that essentially pans over a piece of concept art. Everything from the game’s system requirements to the release date is still “TBD,” and players who are lucky enough to get “friend invites via our playtesters” are promised “temporary art and experimental gameplay” on the Steam page.

Not that a Steam page is strictly needed for more info on Deadlock at this point. Since the first leaks months ago, the playtest has slowly expanded from hundreds of players to tens of thousands, including some who have posted extensive impressions of the game. Valve has also reportedly lifted rules regarding streaming for invited playtesters, leading to a surge of players showing off live gameplay on Twitch.

Those extended streams and impressions show a six-on-six hero shooter (a la Overwatch) but with teams of NPC drones protecting Dota 2-style battle lanes as well. There’s also the requisite Fortnite-style cover construction, Titanfall-style double-jumping and air-dashing, melee attacks and parries, and all the unlockable abilities you could hope for.

Given all that direct info, the presence of a new Steam page mainly serves as an anchor for Wishlist-based reminders, user-defined tagging (bot “MOBA” and “cute” are currently popular), and a lot of spammy/scammy invite-begging in the Community hub and forums. Still, it’s not every day that a completely new title appears on Valve’s old Steam developer page—we’ve set a reminder to check for the next one in 2030 or so.