Valve's Deadlock reached 262,145 concurrent players on Steam, passing the all-time concurrent player peak of Team Fortress 2, which stands at 253,997, according to Steam player data tracked by SteamDB. The record came as Valve released Solomon, the latest of six new heroes added to the MOBA as part of its City Never Sleeps update.

Deadlock is still technically an invite-only test and has no public release date. Valve hands out invites generously, and invites are also shared in Discord communities, so getting into the game is not difficult for interested players.

The Team Fortress 2 figure has a caveat. Its Steam peak was set about three years ago and does not include players from the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions released as part of The Orange Box.

The player surge follows the largest Deadlock update so far. City Never Sleeps overhauls the entire map, called the Cursed Apple, with new neutral monsters and reworked areas based on an occult version of 1950s New York:

• Broadway, the center lane, is now a neon district with a miniature version of 1950s Times Square at its heart.
• Greenwich has become an occult take on Central Park, with a university and an arboreal garden.
• York turns its former walker arenas into a stock exchange and a factory ground.
• The districts between lanes now have their own themes and creeps, from a theater district with creepy dolls to Chinatown with festival spirits and haunted cabbage pots.

Six heroes arrived with the update and were released one at a time. They include Violet, an art student; Deadman Danny, a skeletal crash test dummy and weapons salesman; Nurse Harrow; the Rat King, who has more than 100 voice lines; Baba, a reinvention of the Baba Yaga myth riding a bird-legged park bench; and Solomon, a chess-loving old man.

Solomon's weapon is a chess board. Players report that each reload recreates a different historic chess game state, depending on the number of bullets loaded onto the board. Valve also added dozens of new conversations and voice lines between existing characters.

Access to the Deadlock test requires an invite on Steam. Players who want to try it can follow these steps:

1. Ask a friend who already has Deadlock access to send an invite through Steam.
2. Look for invites shared in Deadlock Discord communities if no friend has access.
3. Accept the invite in Steam and install Deadlock.

Deadlock first leaked about two years ago, and activity in the test has grown since then. Valve has not announced when Deadlock will leave the invite-only phase or whether the new player peak will change its release plans.