Valve isn't even trying to hide its worst-kept secret anymore, as unannounced hero shooter Deadlock is reportedly open to anyone and totally unrestricted by NDA

Valve's worst-kept shooter secret has once again surfaced online, and it doesn't look like the developer is trying to hide it anymore as it's alleged that players don't even have to sign a non-disclosure agreement to stop them from talking about it.

We've known for some time now that Valve is working on something shooter-shaped, even if it's still not announced anything. The name 'Deadlock' first got thrown into the conversation back in May, and since then, the game has been pulling in thousands of players in behind-the-scenes playtests. An already impressive concurrent player count of over 12,000 , which it hit over the weekend, rose even further yesterday past the 18,000-mark ( thanks, SteamDB ).

Anyway, now things have been taken further, as The Verge's Sean Hollister has shared a written preview – along with 24 minutes of gameplay footage – of Deadlock. Perhaps the most curious part about the whole thing is the reported lack of restrictions in place to keep information about the shooter from breaching containment – it's alleged that a "no-strings-attached" invite was received to play it in the first place, with no verbal agreements or NDAs in place.

Furthermore, the article shows a screenshot of a pop-up that apparently appears when you load up the game, politely asking players not to share anything about it. However, Hollister writes that you don't actually have to press 'OK' on this to get rid of it, as apparently pressing the escape key also gets past it.

On top of that, we can also work out exactly how that concurrent player count keeps growing, as it's reported that anyone with access to the playtest can copy an invite for an unrestricted number of their Steam friends, too. It's worth noting that Hollister was banned from matchmaking after the article was published, and suggests that Valve was "not fine" with him playing with friends, however.

Anyway, despite all this, Valve has still not officially mentioned this project and has not suggested a possible announcement date. It's no doubt a bizarre buildup for the third-person shooter, but it's keeping us on our toes, anyway.

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