What is Deadlock? Valve’s new mystery game explained

The somewhat sudden appearance of Deadlock has taken many gamers by total surprise. Valve cooking up something sweet in secret is par for the course, but only learning about it when you randomly receive a beta invite from some person on your Steam friends list? That’s a less than conventional way of spreading the word for an upcoming release.

Novel marketing approaches aside, the actual nature of Deadlock isn't exactly straightforward. Looking at screenshots isn't much help, either. Even after messing around in the beta for a while, it’s still isn't the easiest experience to put into words. We’re going to give it a go though, so here goes.

It’s kind of like DOTA, kind of like Overwatch, and there is an air of Team Fortress 2 meets BioShock art deco vibe going on visually.

If we briefly concentrate on the shooting alone, it’s third person, but before the FPS loyalists get too upset, know that it really does feel precise, more than you would expect from a third person shooter. Not quite as much as VALORANT or CS2, but that’s not necessary an issue as your health lasts far, far longer. This is not a game about murdering your fellow man as expediently as possible, it’s about grinding down the opposition’s defense.

This can be done with a frankly huge roster of heroes – all of which feature easily distinguished-from-distance silhouettes, much like Overwatch 2. Aside from shooting regular-ish guns in regular-ish ways (one of the characters uses literal finger guns), each hero gets their own abilities. There is plenty of variance here from fanciful grenades, to quick dashes to aid traversal.

Moving away from the feel of the weapons and combat, and onto the gameplay itself, you find yourself accomplishing standard MOBA business. Slowly make your way towards the opponents end of the map via a few different lanes, repeatedly killing the other players and their minions en route. (After a fun ride on the ziplines, which serve to speed up an otherwise annoying commute after respawning.)

Progress towards the goal is heavily marked by the destruction of the “Guardians” which are basically giant robots with a lot of health that must be worn down over time with group effort. The trick here is not to get too close, as these guys can delete your health bar in just a few seconds, and not from too far as your regular small-arms fire does less damage at longer ranges and absolutely zero past a certain point.

As per regular MOBA rules, all this needs to be done while stopping the opposing team from doing the same. The maps are then as you might expect – essentially symmetrical so that one team does not have an automatic advantage.

You might be able to tell that we’re struggling to fully describe Deadlock. To be honest, its difficult to fully elucidate when it seems to be the first game of a new genre, a fusion of hero shooter with MOBA. So yes, calling it “kind of like DOTA, kind of like Overwatch” is not incorrect, but not fully accurate either. You’re going to have to try it yourself.

At time of writing, the only way to play Deadlock is to receive an invite from a friend who’s already received one. This is viral marketing in a literal sense. There doesn’t seem to be a tight limit on how many invites can be sent out, however, so if you spot someone on your friends list playing it, it’s worth shooting them a message to ask for an invite. Only odious gatekeepers will refuse. Then again, we are talking about gamers here.

In an refreshing departure from typical early-access performance, Deadlock runs smoothly, even on relatively humble hardware. It helps of course that the art style is not trying to be overly realistic, so ray tracing, accurate reflections, and ridiculously detailed textures do not make an appearance here. This means that the FPS stays high, even during screen-busy periods.

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