Steam’s Invite-Only Shooter Deadlock Is Quietly Becoming An Absolute Monster

A thriving fan art community is always a sign of an entrenched playerbase. Deadlock, Valve’s secretive MOBA hero shooter, is currently teeming with creations all over social media that span the big three categories: horny, cute, and funny. In a way, these are perfect descriptors for the overall vibe of the latest six heroes to join the roster, which, alongside a plethora of additions and visual tweaks introduced in last week’s big update, have led to a newfound momentum worth paying attention to.

The game’s lineup includes the sword-wielding demon Apollo, the unicorn-horned performer Celeste, arms expert priest Venator, a sleepy small creature named Rem, werewolf bounty hunter Silver, and Wednesday-coded necromancer Graves. Each hero brings a distinct presence to the roster, which is now made up of 38 misfits. Valve, however, didn’t add all six of them at once—rather, they’ve let the community vote on who they want to unlock first, with two heroes being released per week starting on January 26.

©Valve

People have indeed been showing up, making all sorts of fan art championing their faves and asking others to vote for them, with votes being awarded by winning and taking part in matches. In-game, you can place sprays of propaganda posters displaying your candidate of choice, and some folks have seemingly spent a considerable amount of time doing so. Considering that the MOBA continues to be available solely via invites from Steam friends and its store page is deliberately non-descriptive, the communal enthusiasm makes for a commendable contrast.

So what’s Deadlock all about? Structurally and spiritually, it’s a MOBA. Matches can easily go to hell if your team is uncoordinated. Purchasing the right items based on your character’s strengths and weaknesses to put together a good build is a fundamental part of the experience. How well you farm resources (souls in Deadlock) in order to unlock and upgrade your hero’s abilities can easily turn the tide. You know, the usual.

Yet the DNA shared with hero shooters is tangible. It’s present in how you control characters and how you face the action on the map. While everyone has different acrobatics to offer, they’re all intersected by the same mechanics, which are quite distinctive in the genre. You can dodge to the sides and in mid-air, wallrun, slide on the ground, mantle over ledges, and double jump. The maps themselves are designed with these maneuvers in mind: the latest update introduced vents and crawlspaces, adding yet another mobility layer. From their conception, however, maps encourage exploration, with plenty of alleyways to snake through and vertical architecture that’s ripe for the occasional rooftop fight. Speaking of which, melee attacks are quite important during combat, and you can even parry (and be parried).

©Valve

Jumping into a regular match can be disorienting to say the least, especially without prior knowledge of what to expect from characters or an idea of which items to get. Last week’s update, however, smartly added a new mode called Street Brawl, which is similar to ARAM in League of Legends. In essence, it bitesizes the average 30-minute match by automatically pitting two 4v4 teams against each other on a single line, rather than the usual 6v6 across three lines, making it so that smackdowns are immediate, more intimate affairs.

There’s also no farming or shopping involved in Street Brawl. Everyone starts each of the best-of-five rounds with equal resources, so you can access your four abilities from the jump and upgrade them often, and you’re offered three random item sets to pick from before plunging into the fray. In essence, Street Brawl lives up to its name by inviting you to focus on the fight. But there’s enough strategy involved to make it a great introduction to the overall game, as you get acclimated to heroes and maps without having to commit to longer matches where the stakes are higher, and everyone is, well, more stressed.

Deadlock draws influences from many sources, and it’s far from the first MOBA to experiment with more agile third-person experiences (see Smite and Paragon, for example). At the same time, Deadlock oozes style in a way few other online games have accomplished, with fantasy, occult, and steampunk elements coexisting in harmony in its noir depiction of New York. There are dashes of Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines and Hellboy combined with the grit of a dive bar restroom in Bushwick, Brooklyn.

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The simple act of countering the often gray and dull aesthetic of some MOBA and hero shooters—a trap that even Valve itself almost fell into with Neon Prime, an early development of Deadlock with a sci-fi aesthetic we’ve seen ad infinitum—is already a distinctive quality. Yet the aesthetic would simply be a charming backdrop if it weren’t for the strong cast of characters breathing life into the world.

Take the freshly unlocked heroes as an example, which won the majority vote for this past week. Graves is a student necromancer who uses the dismembered hand of her mentor as a primary weapon, can summon flying skulls, and also create a gravestone that spawns ghouls over time. Rem, on the other hand, is a little sleepy guy who tosses his pillow at a distance, commands a group of (even smaller) minions that can collect loot and provide support to allies, and also puts foes in an area to sleep with his ultimate ability.

Characters are, in essence, the single element that fosters longevity in MOBAs, offering fresh air to already established rosters. But aside from purely mechanical incentives, if they don’t look cool, what’s the point? It’s been apparent for some time that Valve is putting a great deal of attention into the design of Deadlock’s characters, but this latest batch of heroes, alongside one last year that included a punk goat and not one but two vampires, are helping to solidify the art style, and in turn, the identity of Deadlock altogether. 

©Valve

There are quite a few distinctive gameplay elements and visual features that set Deadlock apart, from the ziplines hovering over each of the lanes on a map that are used for traversal to the way chat text is displayed as dialogue bubbles under each character portrait. Yet it’s the hero roster I keep coming back for. Valve is clearly aware of the attention on them, as it continues to add dialogue interactions between characters (et tu, Left 4 Dead?) as well as smaller, nonetheless significant details like different portraits when a hero is on a killing spree or in a critical state.

It’s still early to say if Deadlock will become the next big thing. According to SteamDB, its all-time peak was 171,490 concurrent players, which happened shortly after the alpha launch in August 2024. According to Steam’s official charts as of the early hours of Friday, it has reached a 100,000 concurrent player peak, which hasn’t happened in a minute. While the numbers are obviously dwarfed by its older MOBA sibling, it’s not small either, especially since it remains an invite-only affair.

Metrics aside, and regardless of whether the current momentum can last after the remaining four heroes are unlocked, I’m finding joy in this rare phase of Deadlock. There isn’t a store, microtransactions, or a battle pass being shoved in my face. Ranked matches and rank distribution are absent, too, so that competitive edge is yet to influence how players engage with the game. And yes, the game is indeed still a work in progress, reflected in tech issues that pop up at random. At the heart of it all, though, the additions of the latest update seem to have finally brought the core experience to realization, while cementing the world and ambiance that engulfs it more firmly. What Valve decides to do next is a mystery. For now, I’m content with continuing to get to know its band of misfits, one brawl at a time.