Release Date
TBA More Details
Genre
Action, Shooter, Strategy
Platforms	Price (MSRP)
	Wishlist Only
Developer	Publisher
Valve	Valve
Number of Players	Age Rating
1-12	Rating Pending
Time to Finish	Cross Platform
30-45 Minutes Per Match	No
Official Website	TBA

Deadlock Latest News

　⚫︎　 Deadlock Dev Uses ChatGPT to Help With Matchmaking Code
　⚫︎　 Deadlock, Valve’s Upcoming MOBA Shooter, Officially Revealed on Steam

Deadlock Overview

Deadlock is the latest title being developed and published by Valve. The MOBA shooter was previously known as Neon Prime, which was set in a sci-fi setting, but was later revamped to become Deadlock, now set in an alternate occult 1920s. Initially, only select members had access to a private playtest, but eventually participants were allowed to invite friends to join. As the playtest’s existence was brought to light, it quickly became one of Steam’s most popular titles and rose to the top of their platform’s most wishlisted games and daily concurrent players.

The game is a battle between two opposing, all-powerful ‘Patrons’ who can grant wishes once their ‘Rituals’ have been completed. However, completing the rituals requires souls. Various Heroes from all over the world gather to have their wishes fulfilled in exchange for their service. They now compete alongside and against each other to gather souls and complete their respective Patrons’ rituals to have their desires met.

Steam
Wishlist only Free-to-Play

Deadlock Gameplay

Deadlock is a third-person shooter MOBA hybrid, wherein you control a Hero with unique stats and abilities. Level them up and buy powerful artifacts throughout the game to grow stronger and complete the main objective–destroy the enemy Patron.

6 players per team are split across 4 different lanes, Green, Yellow, Purple, Blue, and fight against the other team in those respective lanes. Each lane has tiers of defenses, where up front is a single Guardian, then an enormous Walker, and then at the base two Guardians side by side. Minions spawn over a set duration and aid players in each lane in their fight to destroy the opposing defenses to reach the enemy base where their Patron resides.

Players collect souls by scoring the last hit on enemy minions and hitting their soul orbs, or stealing enemy’s soul orbs as they kill your team’s minions. Players level up their Heroes’ abilities by allocating skill points gained. The shop is the most pivotal, where players spend their accumulated souls to purchase items to and grow even stronger or acquire special abilities. As Heroes become more powerful, they can defeat enemies with ease and earn more souls from the kill rewards.

Teams can then coordinate with each other’s unique abilities and items to engage in team fights in hopes of taking out the majority of the opposing team. Defeat Heroes and leave no survivors in order to overwhelm in the late game. With only a handful of defenders to none at all, a team can push a lane together and destroy the enemy Patron with minimal resistance to win the game.

Deadlock Characters

29 Heroes and Still Growing

Deadlock has a wide variety of playstyles spread across its ever-growing roster of characters. In total, there are currently 29 available in the game, where 22 can be played in casual and ranked settings. The other 7 are still in the testing phase in Hero Labs, a playtest queue that is only available within a select time range daily.

Deadlock Reviews

On Its Way To Become Something Great

Deadlock, being a game still in closed alpha development, has scarce reviews. However, we at Game8 have played and noted the game’s many strengths as it’s still in progress. We make note of its excellent and addicting foundations in its core gameplay of combining a shooter and a MOBA, where the third-person view, "providing players with greater situational awareness than a typical first-person perspective could offer." Even in its early conceptual stages, we see it standing out as a "creative and distinctive IP in terms of both world-building and visual style."

However, FrankGamer points out that it’s difficult to review this early in development due to its continuously shifting state. Though he praises the gameplay loop and the occult sci-fi vibe it has, numerous updates prevent him from getting attached as things frequently gets change unannounced, referring to both the gameplay and the visual aesthetics down to whole character models.

Deadlock Trivia

　⚫︎　Deadlock was previously named Neon Prime and Citadel and took place in a sci-fi setting, contrary to the occult 1920s theme it currently sports.
　⚫︎　Much of the assets and character designs it currently boasts are remnants of the previous sci-fi theme, such as the hero Yamato.
　⚫︎　As of writing, all of the game’s jungle creeps are reminiscent of the aliens found in the Half-Life universe, serving as placeholders for their eventual redesign.
　⚫︎　The game is helmed by IceFrog, the main designer behind the original DOTA and DOTA 2.

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Clark Jason Kong

Growing up playing all sorts of games, they love playing a little bit of everything, all of the time. Favorites include Counter-Strike, Life is Strange, Final Fantasy, Spiritfarer, and Devil May Cry.