Deadlock Hit 303,347 People at Once, and You Still Cannot Buy It
Valve's invite-only hero shooter peaked on Steam on Oct 16, the hour painter hero Violet went live. It is not in the store. The last hero of the current run, Nurse Harrow, is due Oct 20.
Most games celebrate a sales chart. Deadlock celebrated a door that is still locked.
On Friday, October 16, SteamDB counted 303,347 people in Valve’s hero shooter at once. That is the all-time peak. Violet, a painter who fights with living ink, went live the same day in an update called Paint the Town. Destructoid noted the number and the awkward fact next to it: the game is still a closed test. You get in because a friend who already plays sends an invite. It is not sitting on the Steam store page waiting for a price. For a stretch it was the fourth most-played thing on the platform anyway.
The peaks have been stacking. Earlier heroes in the City Never Sleeps run kept setting the high-water mark the hour they arrived. Violet is the one that pushed it past 300,000. The last of that set, Nurse Harrow, is scheduled for Tuesday, October 20, at 2 p.m. Pacific. Valve has not put a release date on the game itself. Wishlist interest has been loud enough that the closed test already behaves like a launch.
Three hundred thousand concurrent players is a store-page number. Deadlock posted it without a store page. That is either a very confident beta or a very strange way to leave money on the table until somebody at Valve decides the door can open. For now the painter is in, the nurse is next, and the line outside is made of people who still need a friend on the inside.