Deadlock Hits New Steam Concurrent Player Record of Over 260,000, Ranking Third in Valve History

According to IT Home on October 16, foreign media NoteBook Check reported that Valve's yet-to-be-officially-announced hero shooter and MOBA hybrid game Deadlock set a new concurrent player record on Steam. According to SteamDB data, the game reached 262,145 concurrent players on October 9, surpassing the record of 253,997 set by Team Fortress 2 in July 2023, making Deadlock the third-highest peak concurrent player game in Valve's history, behind only Counter-Strike 2 and Dota 2. The new record also reflects Deadlock's recently sustained growth in popularity. After the "City Never Sleeps" update launched at the end of September, the game's peak concurrent players reached 228,086; by October 9, that number had increased by more than 34,000. In comparison, in 2025 the game's peak concurrent players never exceeded 70,000, while since 2026, every month's peak has surpassed that level. However, directly comparing Deadlock with Team Fortress 2 also has certain limitations. Team Fortress 2's historical record was set in 2023, when the game was facing issues such as rampant bot accounts and server idling, so concurrent player numbers may not fully represent the true scale of active players. In addition, compared with the period when Team Fortress 2 was at its commercial peak, today's PC gaming market is larger, and Steam's user base has grown significantly. It is worth noting that Valve has still not officially announced Deadlock. The game has been in limited testing since August 2024 and is currently only accessible via friend invitations. The above information comes from the original source and was compiled by AI.