Valve’s Deadlock isn’t out yet and it already has cheaters

Valve’s upcoming multiplayer game Deadlock already has cheaters, despite not being officially released yet.

The multiplayer title, which has been a “friends and family” closed beta for some time, was something of an open secret for quite some time until Valve finally officially announced it last month.

However, although the game has still to get a proper release date, videos have already emerged of closed beta users seemingly using cheat software.

As spotted by 80 Level, a user on the Steam Reddit page posted a video showing evidence of cheaters playing the game.

The clip appears to show the use of an aimbot for extremely quick and accurate aiming, as well as one player shooting through a wall and another bending their shots around a wall.

One user replied that the cheaters most have “a sad existence” cheating on a game that isn’t out yet. “There aren’t even any stakes right now, right?” they wrote. “No leaderboards, no ranks etc.”

“They do it in obscure games with 59 players too,” another replied. “If they can ruin your day that makes them happy. That’s their goal, to ruin your fun and ‘win’.”

Despite Valve’s secrecy around Deadlock, discussion of the game on social media had increased in the weeks leading up to the official announcement, with hours of video from the game’s closed test found across social media.

There isn’t currently a release date for Deadlock, nor has Valve provided minimum or recommended system requirements for the game on the Steam page.

Valve co-founder and CEO Gabe Newell said in 2021 that the company had multiple games in development and was keen to make more single-player experiences following Half-Life Alyx’s release the previous year.

The company’s most recent release was last year’s Counter-Strike 2. Before this, it had mainly focused on VR titles for some years. Valve has reportedly developed and subsequently cancelled dozens of titles in recent years.