Valve Leak Says New Deadlock Game Is a Mix of Overwatch, Dota 2, and More

According to new leaks, Valve's in-development hero shooter is a mix of several popular titles in the genre.

By Hannah Adkins

New details have been leaked about Valve's next hero shooter game, which is also now reportedly titled Deadlock. Thanks to a known Valve news source and leaker Gabe Follower, a content creator that heavily follows the ongoings of Valve and Valve boss Gabe Newell (per the username...), we have some potential additional details on the upcoming game. Of course, all of this information from Gabe Follower should be taken with a grain of salt, as they're ultimately leaks and therefore could prove to be incorrect whenever Valve shares more information on the game in an official capacity, but it's still nice to have some details to consider.

According to Gabe Follower, Valve's Deadlock is a "Competitive third person hero-based shooter. 6 vs 6 battling on huge map with 4 lanes. Usable abilities and items. Tower defense mechanics. Fantasy setting mixed with steampunk. Magicians, weird creatures and robots. Fast travel using floating rails, similar to Bioshock Infinite."

Gabe follower continued the topic in another thread to draw some additional comparisons, stating "Basically, fast-paced interesting ADHD gameplay. Combination of Dota 2, Team Fortress 2, Overwatch, Valorant, Smite, Orcs Must Die. Hero design pretty much inspired by Dota universe. Main map references modern steampunk European city (little bit like Half-Life). Initially game had sci-fi elements inspired by Half-Life and Portal, but after bad feedback dev team decided to focus on fantasy."

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While Valve primarily focuses on Steam nowadays, the company pioneered the hero shooter genre with the release of Team Fortress 2 in 2007. As for hero shooters as a whole, they've made quite a name for themselves in gaming space over the last several years with games like Blizzard's Overwatch, EA's Apex Legends, and Riot's Valorant dominating the genre. While these three massive titles still have a consistently active fanbase and content creators, there's plenty of room for additional releases into the genre, something NetEase is taking advantage of with their upcoming title Marvel Rivals. It's only natural the studio that paved the way for the genre would want to circle back to it, as Valve is doing with Deadlock.

And while according to these reports from Gabe Follower Deadlock will have aspects that make it a combination of these popular titles and more, there are some notable differences that would bring something fresh to the genre such as tower defense elements, floating rails, and most of all that it's from the third-person perspective rather than first-person like most of the other titles. 

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