Deadlock has reached a new all-time peak of 262,145 concurrent players, surpassing Team Fortress 2’s previous Steam record of 253,997 simultaneous users.
The surge came amid the release of the major City Never Sleeps update. Yesterday, Valve’s MOBA added Solomon, the latest character in a gradual rollout of six new heroes. Rat King and Baba had joined the roster earlier.
According to SteamDB, Deadlock’s new peak exceeds the highest concurrent player count ever recorded for Team Fortress 2 on Steam. However, the comparison is not entirely straightforward. PC gaming had a smaller audience when TF2 was at its most popular, and the game was also available on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 as part of The Orange Box. Its player statistics may also have been affected by bots and idle servers.
Even with those caveats, Deadlock’s achievement is impressive, particularly in the highly competitive MOBA genre, where attracting a large player base can be difficult. The game is technically still in invite-only testing, yet it is already drawing a substantial audience.
The latest addition, Solomon, a chess-themed mage, may have helped fuel the surge. His weapon takes the form of a chessboard, and players report that reloading it produces different historical chess positions depending on how many bullets are placed on the board.
Unusual mechanics like these appear to be helping Deadlock maintain momentum, with interest in the game continuing to grow since it first leaked to the public around two years ago.
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