If you’ve just spent your first few hours in Deadlock grinding casual matches and falling in love with its fast-paced MOBA twist, the first thing you’ll probably want to do is bring your friends along for the fun. But if you’ve spent 20 minutes clicking around menus trying to figure out how to invite your friend to Deadlock, you’re far from alone. As an early access title, Deadlock’s social features are still being polished, and lots of new players run into hidden settings or small glitches that stop invites from sending or landing. This guide walks you through every step of the process, plus quick fixes for the most common issues that ruin multiplayer plans.
Prep Steps Before You Send a Deadlock Friend Invite
Before you even open the social menu in Deadlock, there are three quick checks you should run to make sure your invites go through the first time. Skipping these steps is the number one reason players end up stuck sending invites that no one receives. First, confirm that both you and your friend have added each other on Steam first. Deadlock doesn’t support in-game friend requests yet, so you’ll need an existing Steam friend connection to send invites. Second, set your Steam profile visibility to "Friends Only" or "Public". If your profile is set to fully private, Deadlock can’t pull your friend list into the game, so your friend won’t show up as available to invite. Third, verify your game file integrity through Steam if you’ve recently downloaded an update. Corrupted update files often break social features, and this check takes less than two minutes to run from your Steam library. These small prep steps will save you a ton of frustration when you go to invite your friend to Deadlock later.
Step-by-Step: How to Invite Your Friend to Deadlock
Once you’ve completed the prep steps, sending an invite only takes a few clicks, as long as you follow the process correctly. First, launch Deadlock and wait for the full main menu to load. Wait for the main menu to fully load before accessing the social tab – if you click the social icon while the game is still booting, your friend list will often fail to load entirely. Next, look for the small social icon in the top right corner of the screen, which looks like two overlapping silhouettes. Click that icon to open the social menu. You’ll see three tabs at the top of the menu: Friends Online, Friend Requests, and Blocked Players. Navigate to the Friends Online tab to see all your Steam friends who are currently playing or have Deadlock open. If your friend doesn’t show up in the list, use the search bar at the top of the menu to type their exact Steam display name. Double-check you’re typing their exact Steam display name if they don’t appear in your friends list, even a small typo will lead to a "player not found" error. Once you find their name, click the three small dots next to their profile, then select "Invite to Party" from the dropdown menu. Your friend will get an in-game notification, and once they accept, their avatar will show up in your party bar on the left side of the main menu. Once you’ve completed these steps, you’ll be able to invite your friend to Deadlock matches in just a few clicks every time.
Common Deadlock Invite Issues and Quick Fixes
Even if you follow every step perfectly, you might run into the occasional glitch, especially after new game patches drop. Most issues have super simple fixes that take less than a minute to try, no tech expertise required. Here are the most common problems players run into, and how to fix them fast:
- Invite never arrives: Ask your friend to check their Friend Requests tab in the Deadlock social menu, not just their Steam notifications. Some invite alerts get stuck in-game instead of popping up on Steam, so they might have a pending invite they haven’t seen yet.
- "Player not found" error: Confirm both of you have added each other on Steam first, and neither has blocked the other. Deadlock only recognizes existing Steam friends for invites, so you won’t be able to send invites to people you haven’t added on the platform yet.
- Can't join party after accepting: Make sure neither of you is already in a match or queued for a game mode. You can only join a party if you’re both on the main menu with no active queue, so cancel any pending queues before trying to join.
- Cross-platform invite fails: If one of you is playing on Steam Deck and the other on PC, enable "Cross-Platform Play" in your Settings > Gameplay menu, then restart the game to apply the change. Cross-platform play is still in beta, so this setting is disabled by default for many players.
If you run into an issue that’s not on this list, the first thing you should try is restarting both Deadlock and Steam. Most temporary glitches are caused by cached data that gets cleared when you restart the apps. Never download third-party "invite fix" tools that claim to resolve Deadlock social issues, they’re almost always malware designed to steal your Steam account information. Valve releases weekly patches to fix common social bugs, so most widespread issues get resolved within a few days of being reported.
Tips to Streamline Your Deadlock Party Play
Once you’ve got your friend in your party, there are a few small tweaks you can make to ensure your play sessions run smoothly, no unnecessary interruptions. First, assign a single party leader who handles queueing for matches. If multiple people in the party try to queue at the same time, you might run into errors that kick you out of the queue entirely. The leader can also adjust the game mode selection, so you don’t have to vote on every single match type you want to play. Second, set your party privacy to "Invite Only" if you don’t want random players joining your queue. By default, parties are set to "Friends of Friends", which means people you don’t know might request to join if they’re friends with someone in your group. You can adjust this setting by clicking the three dots next to your party name in the social menu. Third, if you’re playing with a group of new players, create a custom lobby first to practice against bots. Custom lobbies let you adjust game speed, turn off friendly fire, and test out new characters without risking your casual or ranked MMR. You can even invite more friends to spectate if you want to host a small watch party for your group. These small tweaks make it way easier to invite your friend to Deadlock and keep your sessions focused on the game, not troubleshooting.
Learning how to invite your friend to Deadlock is way simpler once you know the small prep steps and common glitches to watch out for. Most of the time, failed invites aren’t your fault – they’re just small quirks of an early access game that’s still being refined. With these steps and fixes in your back pocket, you’ll be able to get your whole crew into a match in under a minute, no endless menu clicking or frustration required. Next time you’re craving a few fast-paced MOBA matches, you won’t have to waste any time before jumping into the action with your favorite people.