Insider Gaming has been given new details on Valve's new game named Deadlock, which is believed to be released sometime in 2025.
As already leaked, the game is a 6v6 third-person hero-based shooter. Heroes include magicians, robots, creatures, humans, and more. There are currently 19 different heroes, each with different abilities and playstyles that you’d come to expect from a MOBA including ranged, healers, tanks, assassins, etc.
Players have described the game to me as being very similar to DOTA in terms of its gameplay loop and mechanics. This includes killing enemies and creeps to get the in-game currency of “souls,” which allows you to buy items to make your hero stronger. According to sources, both creeps and enemies will spawn a soul upon death, which floats up and away when they die.
Well, artifact was dead from the start and underlords was more of a spinoff chasing a fad. What we know about Deadlock is that they're putting a lot of resources into it, and it sounds like it would be really popular with the MOBA crowd.
Pouring resources does not equate quality, there's no new idea here. They try a overwatch like game when their IP contains the most successful hero shooter out there.
really popular with the MOBA crowd
They tend to play non shooter mobas, you know, like dota. Why try to compete with your own ip?
It reeks of poor design choice, jus like artifact, and no amount of money will fix that.
I keep seeing everyone comparing this to overwatch, how is this like overwatch at all? Just because you pick a character and they have unique abilities?
I've been playing dota for over a decade and couldn't get into any other moba I've ever tried, but I think this sounds like it could be fun and I'd give it a chance at least.
Edit: I take that back, I've played exactly one other game I'd classify as a moba extensively, and it was Monday Night Combat, which was really similar to this concept. Super Monday Night Combat killed it and sucked though.
I loved that game. If Valve wants to take a crack at making Super Monday Night Combat but done well I'm here for it, and I think they could pull it off.
There were many factors that went into the failure of artifact, gameplay was not one of them and is still solid to this day. The biggest problem was the monetization, and not really the monetization itself, but the timing of monetization. Hearthstone conditioned people to want free cards and earn free rewards by playing the game, artifact was a digital representation of a physical card game where you could literally build decks for like $10 and enjoy it, the allure of free low quality shit will always overshadow high quality paid content and it's just fucking sad. Now look at hearthstone, a shit husk of a game it once was.
Apparently valve doesn't really assign teams to certain projects. People can work on what projects they like and things organically get people behind them if they are looking good or interesting.
This means games that do get completed are often really good and ones that weren't looking good fizzle out.
It's an interesting approach for sure. I think it makes sense rather than steaming ahead with a bad game. On the flip side what could be an interesting product may die out.
It's happened several times to half life 3 apparently.