Deadlock Review

Greetings fans of MOBA genre! Finally, I have collected information about Deadlock game from Valve – the first IP project of the developers for the last 14 years and I want to share it with those who are eagerly waiting for the game’s release.

The project has been in development for several years. Before the start of testing, most likely you have met mentions of the game under the name Neon Prime. So, here is a review of what is known so far.

Gameplay

Deadlock Valve is a MOBA shooter. The main mechanics are taken from Dota. At opposite ends of the map there are bases of enemy teams, which are connected by lines. Creeps come out along the lines at regular intervals. The task in the match is to destroy the opponent’s Patron – the analog of the throne from Dota 2.

Unlike other competitive games, each team consists of 6 players instead of 5. The map is similar to maps from other MOBA games, but the bases are connected by four lines instead of three.

In my experience, the map is 2-3 times larger than in Dota. For fast movement you can use monorails – analog of teleport scrolls. The closer the allied creeps are to the enemy base, the greater the distance the character travels on the monorail.

The map presents various points of interest – neutral creeps and the local analog of Roshan, which can be destroyed only with the support of an ally. When killing the monster, the team receives temporary buffs.

Characters and Balance

Deadlock features 21 characters. Each of the characters has unique attacks and skills. Full-fledged distribution by roles in the project is not yet presented, but all heroes can be conditionally divided into 3 roles:

• tank;
• kerry;
• support.

Deadlock’s characters are similar to the operatives from Valorant and Overwatch. The developers even took some ready-made archetypes.

Unlike Overwatch, in Valve’s project, heroes buy artifacts for reinforcement. The items are divided into 3 categories:

• damage – increase weapon damage;
• survivability – increase the hero’s survivability;
• mysticism – increase damage from abilities.

Each hero was given 4 item slots. Another 4 universal slots players get after destroying enemy keepers – the analog of the tower in Dota.

Artifacts must be bought with souls – which are given for killed creeps and heroes. To get souls, players destroy spheres that fall after the death of heroes and creeps. A player can either destroy an enemy sphere or infect an ally’s sphere. Both options give approximately the same number of souls, so the lining stage is very important in Deadlock. The gap in gained souls can be several times between the heroes, who are equally lined up, after the first 10-15 minutes.

I believe that Deadlock turned out to be very skill-dependent. Before you play with real people, I advise you to play a few matches with bots to master your favorite heroes and learn how to get soul spheres.

There are still problems with the balance in the game, which is not surprising. Deadlock is at the early testing stage – the developers regularly release balance patches.

Technical Requirements

There are no stated technical requirements at the final testing stage. Currently, the Deadlock page on Steam states that the player needs to have a 64-bit OS.

PC system requirements, on which you can play Deadlock in alpha testing:

• CPU – AMD Ryzen 5-3500C;
• video card – Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050;
• RAM – 8 GB.

Keep in mind that when downloading from Steam, the game asks for 25 GB of disk space, which is surprising – the developers said that they used “what you have” to run playtest. It is noticeable that many textures and assets are not finalized.

We expect that by the release the graphics will be improved, and Deadlock will occupy more game space. But it is obvious that graphical improvements will increase technical requirements, and players with weak PCs will not be able to play with stable FPS.

Steam Deck is worth mentioning separately. I was able to run the game on a console from Valve, but I’ll be honest, it was uncomfortable to play. The developers promise to optimize the project for their own console, but this is not the primary goal.

How to play

Deadlock developers have released the project into conditionally closed testing. You can get access to the game by invitation of already playing users. The number of invites a player can give out is not limited. Pick online Deadlock has managed to exceed 100,000 players.

Invites are freely given out in Discord themed communities and Steam groups. After sending the invite, I received the invitation within a few hours. Steam automatically added Deadlock to my library.

Release Date

Testing of the game started in the early summer of 2024. The project went into open testing on August 24, 2024. Streamers got the opportunity to broadcast the game on their channels, the developers gave access to the early version of the project to regular players.

The official release date of the game is still unknown. When predicting the dates we can take into account the experience of Valve’s previous projects. Players started to get access to Dota 2 after the first major tournament – The International in 2011. The game was officially released almost 2 years later – in the summer of 2013.

Valve does not set deadlines when working on projects, it is impossible to predict even an approximate release date. The release of Deadlock into open testing and high peak online shows that the project is at the final stage of testing.

In September 2024, the main Dota 2 tournament – The International 13 – will take place. Gaming journalists expect Valve to announce the first major Deadlock tournament during the tournament.