Ghosts and Ghouls Haunting New York
Earlier this month, Deadlock, one of Valve’s up and coming games recieved its City Never Sleeps update
In 2024, the game studio Valve, famous for games such as the Portal series, the Half Life series, and the Team Fortress series released their newest project for private playtesting, Deadlock. Since then, the game has opened its public, invite only playtest, accessible through receiving invites from people who already have access to the game and recently updated the main locale of the game and adding 6 new playable characters.
From left to right, the new characters are Nurse Harrow, Deadman Danny, Baba, Solomon, the Rat King, and Violet
Image from the official Play Deadlock website
Deadlock is a highly stylized 3rd person Hero-shooter/MOBA hybrid, which combines aspects of games like Overwatch and Marvel Rivals with games like League of Legends and DOTA 2. It’s set in an alternate universe of Earth, where following a sporadic supernatural event called the “Maelstrom” the supernatural and occult slowly become a normal part of life.
The game takes place in an occult-ified New York during the 1900s, colloquially known in universe as the “Cursed Apple”. With another Maelstrom predicted to start within the city, factions from all over the world are taking to the streets to partake in “The Ritual”, a ceremony of sorts that uses the supernatural power of the Maelstrom to summon “The Patrons,” the Archmother and the Hidden King, opposing supernatural entities who offer the promise of a wish granted in return for successfully summoning one patron and eliminating the other.
Images courtesy of the Community Deadlock Wiki
Players can take control of up to the current 44 released characters in the game, who all have refreshingly distinct designs from current sci-fi saturation the hero shooter genre has with games like Overwatch and Marvel rivals.
Whether you’re playing as Graves, a high school necromancer who controls the dead using the severed hand of her lich mentor, or The Doorman, the unnerving bellboy of The Baroness hotel, the most haunted hotel in America, most characters in the game have a nice balance of grounded designs and having supernatural elements that feel right which get across their personalities from just a look.
Left is Graves, right is The Doorman
Images courtesy of the Community Deadlock Wiki
In terms of gameplay, it very seamlessly blends elements of Hero-shooters and MOBAs. It follows the symmetrical layout of the map in games like League of Legends and DOTA 2, having distinct early, mid, and late game phases where teams race to power up their characters and destroy the enemy team’s base. On the other side, it matches hero shooters like Marvel Rivals, controlling your characters from a 3rd perspective with each character having a signature weapon, abilities, and ultimate.
While Deadlock being a blend of these 2 genres makes it incredibly unique and stand out, it brings the downside of the steep learning curve both of these genres have. With large character rosters, it takes a while to get used to other characters and what their individual abilities are capable of. Since you can’t switch characters in the middle of a Deadlock match, not knowing what your opponents are able to do will greatly drop a player’s odds of winning.
On top of the roster, Deadlock features other mechanics, such as the movement system, leveling your character, and a multitude of items players can buy from in the in-round shop to upgrade their character. With all of these systems, and the, in my opinion, lacking tutorial, trying to pick up the game can prove very intimidating especially with how both the hero-shooter and MOBA genres are infamous for enabling toxic online behavior.
Despite these drawbacks, there are many resources players can use to learn the game. There’s a smaller game mode called “Street Brawl” that contains a simplified version of the game’s standard mode that helps beginners learn the fundamentals, there’s an in game item-build library where players can get annotated suggestions for item sets to use in matches from other players, and the community has created many resources on websites and youtube.
Overall, Deadlock’s proving to have a lot of potential. With the last new character, Nurse Harrow, of the 6 new characters being released from the City Never Sleeps update coming out at the time of posting, it seems like a great time to pick up and learn the game and learn how to play. Despite the flaws of its beginner unfriendly nature, Deadlock’s shaping up to be one of those games that become really fun once properly learned, as well as making a shift in the gaming space. I recently got access to the playtest, and am more than happy to share the game with anyone interested in trying out the game.