There’s nothing more frustrating than getting hooked on a new competitive game, only to realize half your friend group can’t join you for matches. If you’ve spent the last few weeks grinding Deadlock matches and unlocking rewards, you’ve probably gotten dozens of texts from friends begging to join your lobbies. If you’re not sure how to give friends access to Deadlock without running into weird errors or blocked invites, you’re not alone. Thousands of players run into hidden permission settings, anti-spam restrictions, and client mismatches every time they try to invite new people to play. This guide breaks down every step you need to take, plus common fixes for issues that pop up along the way.
Pre-Requisites Before You Give Friends Access to Deadlock
Before you start spamming invites to everyone on your friend list, there are a few basic boxes you need to tick first. Skipping these steps is the number one reason most invites fail, so it’s worth taking 60 seconds to confirm everything is set up correctly. You must have active, valid Deadlock access yourself first, obviously—you can’t grant access to a game you don’t have permission to play yourself. If you’re playing during a free access weekend, this rule still applies, but you won’t need to share beta keys to get your friends in.
Next, make sure all the friends you want to invite are already on your Steam friend list, and have been for at least 72 hours. Steam has an anti-spam rule that blocks game invites from new friends to cut down on scam messages, so if you just added someone yesterday, you’ll have to wait a couple days to send them a Deadlock invite. Your friends also need to have a valid, non-restricted Steam account—accounts that are limited for non-payment or suspicious activity won’t be able to accept game invites at all. Check if Deadlock is running a public access window before you spend time sharing beta keys, too. During major tournaments or update launches, Valve often opens access to all players for 24 to 72 hours, so anyone can download and play without an invite.
Step-by-Step Process to Add Friends to Your Deadlock Lobby
Once you’ve confirmed all pre-requisites are met, inviting friends to your lobby takes less than a minute, even if you’ve never done it before. First, launch Deadlock and wait for the main menu to load fully. Don’t try to send invites while the game is still updating or syncing your account data, because that can cause invites to get stuck in limbo. Click the small lobby icon in the top right corner of the main menu, right next to your profile icon, to open a new custom lobby.
From there, click the “Invite Friends” button just above the empty player slots on the right side of the screen. That will pull up your full Steam friend list, with a small note next to friends who already have Deadlock access. Select the friends you want to invite, click “Send Invites”, and wait for them to accept. If they don’t have access yet and you have extra beta invites available (you earn these for winning 10 unranked matches, or for participating in official community events), you can send a beta key directly through the same friend list menu.
There are a few common mistakes that can make even correctly sent invites fail, so keep these rules in mind:
- Sending invites to friends who haven’t linked their Steam account to a valid email address, which can block invite delivery and trigger security warnings
- Setting your lobby to “Private” instead of “Friends Only” before sending invites, which will make invites bounce back immediately without a notification
- Inviting more than 5 friends to a standard casual match lobby, since Deadlock only supports 6 players per team for most core game modes
Always set your lobby visibility to “Friends Only” if you plan to invite multiple people at once, even if you only plan to invite people you know. This blocks random players from finding your lobby through the public match queue, and makes sure only people you send invites to can join. If you’re playing a custom game mode that supports more players, you can adjust the max player count in the lobby settings menu before sending invites.
Troubleshooting Common Access Issues for Deadlock Friends
Even if you follow every step perfectly, you might still run into issues with friends not being able to join your lobby. The good news is 99% of these issues have simple, quick fixes that don’t require any technical skills. The most common error people see is the “No Valid Deadlock Access” warning that pops up when a friend clicks an invite. If that happens, first ask your friend to restart their Steam client completely, then check if they have the latest version of Deadlock downloaded to their library.
If the error still pops up, it’s likely because they don’t have beta access, and your lobby invite didn’t include a beta key. If you have extra beta keys left, send one directly through Steam, and ask them to redeem it before trying to join the lobby again. If you don’t have any keys left, they can sign up for the official Deadlock beta waitlist on the Steam store page, and they’ll get access as soon as more slots open up.
Another common issue is invites not showing up for your friend at all, even after you send them. That’s almost always caused by their Steam notification settings being turned off for game invites. Ask them to open their Steam settings, go to the Notifications tab, and make sure the box next to “Allow game invites” is checked. If you’re playing on a test server branch of Deadlock, your friends need to opt into the same branch to access your lobby—this is a super common mistake for players who opt into test branches to try new characters early, and forget to switch back when they want to play with friends. If your ping is too high when friends from other regions join, you can turn off region lock in the lobby settings, but be aware that will lead to higher lag for everyone in the match.
Best Practices for Managing Friend Access to Deadlock Lobbies
Once you get the hang of inviting friends to play, there are a few small rules you can follow to keep your lobbies fun, fair, and secure for everyone. First, never send invites or beta keys to people you don’t know personally, even if they ask nicely in public Discord servers or comment sections. There are a lot of scammers who try to get free beta access to resell accounts, and if Valve traces a resold key back to your account, you could lose your own access too.
If you’re playing ranked matches, only invite friends who are around your skill level. Deadlock’s ranked matchmaking uses the average rank of everyone in your party to match you against opponents, so if you invite a friend who’s never played before, you’ll get matched against players way above their skill level, which will make the match unfun for everyone. You can adjust the lobby’s ranked eligibility in the settings menu if you want to play casual matches with lower-ranked friends without affecting your MMR.
You can kick any friend from your lobby at any time if they’re being disruptive, no warning required—all you have to do is click their profile icon in the player list and select “Kick from Lobby”. If you’re hosting a lobby for a larger group of friends, you can set a custom password in the lobby settings to make sure only people who have the password can join, even if someone accidentally shares the invite link. If you have extra beta invites left, prioritize giving them to friends who play similar competitive games to you, so you know they’ll actually play regularly instead of letting the invite go to waste.
Once you get the hang of how to give friends access to Deadlock, you can spend less time messing with settings and more time grinding matches and climbing the ranked ladder with people you actually enjoy playing with. Most issues you’ll run into are caused by tiny, easy-to-fix settings, so don’t panic if an invite fails the first time. Next time your friends text you begging to join your lobby, you’ll be able to send them an invite and get into a match in less than a minute, no headaches required.