Deadlock is Valve's in-development MOBA shooter, and access to it still runs entirely through playtesters: the Steam page states that "access is currently limited to friend invite via our playtesters." This guide covers the whole invite chain — sending one to a Steam friend, accepting it on the other end, how long it realistically takes, and the fixes for an invite that never shows up.
How to Invite a Friend to Deadlock
You can only send an invite if you are already in the playtest yourself, and only to someone who is already on your Steam friends list. There is no invite code, no key and no sign-up form — if a site offers to sell you one, it is a scam, in the same family as the Steam API scams that circulate around skin trading.
Add the person on Steam first, if they are not already a friend. In the Steam client, open Friends → Add a Friend and use their Steam friend code.
Launch Deadlock and stay on the main menu.
Open the friends panel on the right-hand side of the main menu. At the bottom of it sits a wide button reading Invite a Friend — to be a Deadlock playtester. Click it.
Pick the friend you want to invite from the list that appears.
Confirm. The invite is queued on Valve's side, not delivered instantly — see the timing section below before you assume something broke.
A single important detail: the invite is tied to the Steam account, not to the game. Your friend does not need to own or pre-install anything, and nothing arrives in their Steam library until they accept.
How to Accept a Deadlock Invite
On the receiving end the invite arrives through Steam, not through the game. Two places to look:
The Steam notification bell, top right of the client. Players regularly report that the invite lands there without ever popping up as a new notification, so open the bell and choose "view all" rather than waiting to be alerted.
The Steam playtest invites page — `store.steampowered.com/account/playtestinvites`, opened in a browser while signed in to your Steam account. This is the reliable one: a pending invite sits on that page whether or not a notification ever appeared.
Accepting adds Deadlock to your Steam library like any other game, and from there you install and launch it normally. The playtest is Windows-only, so a Mac or Linux machine will not get you in.
How Long Does a Deadlock Invite Take?
Not instantly, and there is no official figure. Community reports spread from a couple of hours to a day or two, and the wait does not appear to depend on anything the sender can control. Treat anything under 48 hours as normal rather than broken.
That matters for troubleshooting: most "my invite isn't working" posts turn out to be people checking ten minutes after it was sent. Give it a day before you start re-sending.
Why Your Deadlock Invite Isn't Showing Up
Work through these in order — they are sorted by how often they turn out to be the answer.
| What's happening | What to check |
|---|---|
| Nothing arrived at all | Open `store.steampowered.com/account/playtestinvites` in a browser. The invite is often sitting there with no notification attached. |
| It has been a few hours | Wait. Delivery is queued on Valve's side and a same-day arrival is not guaranteed. |
| The sender sees no invite option | They should launch Deadlock and open the main menu. The "Invite a Friend" button lives in the in-game friends panel, not anywhere in Steam. |
| The invite went to the wrong account | Invites follow the Steam friend you picked. Check you are signed in to the account that is actually on their friends list. |
| You are not on their friends list | Invites can only be sent to existing Steam friends. Add each other first, then send. |
| Still nothing after a couple of days | Have the sender send a fresh invite. See below. |
What will not help: reinstalling Steam, verifying files, or buying anything. There is no product that grants Deadlock access.
How to Resend a Deadlock Invite
The sender repeats the process: main menu, friends panel, Invite a Friend, pick the same friend, send again. Re-sending to someone who already has a pending invite does no harm, and it is the standard fix when an earlier invite seems to have vanished.
If the recipient previously had access and lost the entry, the playtest invites page is again the first place to look before anyone re-sends anything.
Who Can Receive a Deadlock Invite?
Anyone with a Steam account who is on the sender's friends list. Beyond that, the picture is less certain: several community guides report that limited Steam accounts — ones that have never made a purchase — cannot receive playtest invites. Valve has not documented any such rule, and the guides disagree with each other, so treat it as a possible explanation if an invite repeatedly fails to land rather than as a confirmed requirement.
What is documented is simpler: the playtest is invite-only, it runs on Windows, and Valve has announced neither a release date nor a price. The Steam page still lists the release date as "to be announced."
FAQ
Can you invite someone to Deadlock without being in the playtest yourself?
No. Invites come from existing playtesters, which is the entire access model right now. If nobody on your friends list is in, your options are the community invite threads on the Deadlock subreddit and Discord servers, where playtesters sometimes hand out spare invites. Nothing there is run by Valve and nothing is guaranteed.
Is there a Deadlock invite code or beta key?
No. There are no codes, keys or sign-up pages for Deadlock — access moves only through Steam friend invites. Any site selling a "Deadlock key" is selling nothing.
How many people can you invite to Deadlock?
Valve has not published a limit, and reports from players vary. Send the invites you need rather than planning around a specific number.
Can you buy or sell Deadlock skins?
Not at the moment. Deadlock has no tradeable cosmetics and no Steam Community Market listings, so the "Deadlock skins" you find online are community mods, not items. That is the opposite of CS2 or Rust, where skins are tradeable inventory items and marketplaces like LIS-SKINS exist to move them. Dataminers found cosmetic-trading code in Deadlock's files in January 2026, but Valve has announced nothing.
Does my friend need to buy Deadlock after accepting?
No. The game is not for sale — it does not have a price or an announced monetization model. The invite simply adds it to the Steam library of the account that accepts it.
Can you play Deadlock with friends once you are both in?
Yes — the playtest supports queueing as a party, which is the point of inviting people in the first place. If you are used to setting up private games with friends in other Valve titles, the flow is much the same as launching a map with friends in CS2, and party voice works the way CS2 voice chat does.
