If you’ve just gotten access to the fast-paced new MOBA Deadlock, the first thing you probably want to do is jump into matches with your favorite group of gaming buddies. A lot of new players run into confusion when navigating the game’s somewhat hidden menu options, especially if they’re used to more polished launch titles with clearer social features. We’ve tested every method of adding and playing with pals across PC and Steam Deck to break down exactly how to invite friends Deadlock without the usual frustration of beta-era UI quirks. You won’t have to dig through random forum threads or mess with hidden settings to get your group in the same lobby.
Step-by-Step: How to Invite Friends Deadlock From Your Steam Friend List
Since Deadlock is a Steam-exclusive title right now, your in-game friend list is directly synced to your existing Steam friends list, so you don’t have to re-add people you already connect with on other games. The process is straightforward once you know where to look for the social menu. First, launch Deadlock and wait for the main menu to load fully, as the social features sometimes take 10 to 15 seconds to sync after you open the game.
Look for the small person-shaped icon in the top right corner of the main menu, right next to your profile name and rank. Click that icon to pull up your full friend list, sorted first by friends who currently have Deadlock open, followed by friends who own the game but are offline, then friends who don’t have the game installed yet. Hover over the name of the friend you want to invite, and click the small blue “invite to lobby” button that pops up to the right of their name. This is the fastest and most reliable way to handle how to invite friends Deadlock, as it uses Steam’s native integration that rarely has issues when both accounts are up to date.
Your friend will get a pop-up notification in Steam and in-game if they already have Deadlock open. Once they accept the invite, their profile will appear on the left side of your main screen, in the lobby player list. You can add up to 4 other friends to a standard public lobby to make a full 5-person stack for ranked or unranked matches. If you don’t see a friend in the list, make sure they’ve already downloaded the game and linked their primary Steam account to Deadlock first.
Fixing Common Deadlock Invitation Errors
Even if you follow the steps perfectly, you might run into glitches that stop invites from sending or showing up for your friends. Most of these issues are tied to the game’s ongoing beta status, so they’re usually easy to fix without waiting for an official patch. Many of these errors pop up because players don’t realize the beta version has smaller quirks that can impact how to invite friends Deadlock without issues.
The most common complaint is that invites never show up for the recipient, even when both players are online and have the game open. This is almost always a notification bug, not an issue with the invite itself. If your invite doesn’t show up for your friend, ask them to open their social menu and send you an invite instead, as incoming invite notifications are often bugged for players running the game in full screen mode.
Another common issue is getting a “player not found” error when you try to invite someone. That almost always means one of you is running an outdated version of the game. Restart Steam and let Deadlock install any pending updates before you try again. If you’re playing on Steam Deck and can’t send invites, try switching to desktop mode for 30 seconds before launching the game again—this resets the Steam social integration that Deadlock relies on for friend connections.
If you’re still having issues after trying those quick fixes, you can try these 2-minute troubleshooting steps:
- Restart your game and Steam client to clear temporary cache issues that break social sync
- Make sure both you and your friend have your Steam status set to “Online” rather than “Away” or “Invisible”
- Turn off any VPN or proxy service you’re running, as these can block Steam’s peer-to-peer connection for invites
How to Set Up a Custom Private Lobby for Friend Groups
If you don’t want to jump straight into public matches, you can set up a private custom lobby to practice, play casual matches, or mess around with game modifiers before you queue for ranked. Custom lobbies are perfect for new groups that want to learn the game’s mechanics together without getting matched against more experienced players. They’re also great for running friendly scrims between two groups of friends.
To create a custom lobby, click the “Play” button on the main menu, then select “Custom Lobby” from the list of game modes at the top of the screen. You can set the lobby to private by toggling the “Public Lobby” switch off, so only people you invite can join. You can also set a password if you want an extra layer of privacy, though that’s rarely necessary for private friend groups.
You can add up to 9 other friends to a custom lobby, letting you run full 5v5 scrims with your group if you have enough people online. You can also adjust game rules like match length, gold gain rates, and hero bans to fit what your group wants to play. If you want to send Deadlock invites to people who are not already on your Steam list, you can share the 6-digit lobby code that appears at the top of the custom lobby screen. They just need to enter that code in the “Join Lobby” tab of their social menu to get added automatically, no friend request required.
You can also add AI bots to fill empty slots in your custom lobby if you don’t have enough people online to make a full match. The AI difficulty is adjustable, so you can start with easy bots to learn new heroes before you play against real people.
Cross-Platform Invite Tips for Steam Deck and PC Players
Deadlock supports full cross-play between PC and Steam Deck, so you don’t have to worry about what device your friends are using to play. The invite process works almost exactly the same across both devices, but there are a few small differences to keep in mind to make the process smoother.
If you’re on Steam Deck, you can access the social menu faster by holding the Steam button and selecting “Friends” from the quick menu, rather than navigating the in-game social tab. This is especially useful if you’re mid-match and want to invite someone to join your next game without backing out to the main menu first. If you’re playing with a friend who uses a controller, you can adjust the lobby’s input settings to make sure everyone has the same control scheme options before you start a match.
One thing to note: you can’t invite players from other platforms right now, as Deadlock is only available on Steam for PC and Steam Deck as of its current beta release. The devs have teased potential console releases down the line, but there’s no official timeline for that yet, so you won’t be able to play with friends on PlayStation or Xbox for the foreseeable future. Always make sure your Steam Deck is running the latest stable SteamOS update if you’re having trouble receiving cross-platform invites from PC players.
Playing Deadlock with friends makes the fast-paced, chaotic matches even more fun, and you don’t have to fight with buggy menus to get your group together. Whether you’re queuing for quick public matches or running custom scrims with your entire friend group, the steps we’ve covered make it easy to get everyone in the same lobby fast. Once you know how to invite friends Deadlock without running into common glitches, you can spend less time navigating menus and more time mastering your favorite heroes and climbing the ranked ladder. If you run into a glitch we didn’t cover, you can always check the official Deadlock community spaces for real-time fixes from other players and the dev team.