There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that Deadlock is going to be the next big thing that shakes up the major competitive esports leaderboards. And Valve is swiftly preparing for it through frequent updates to balance the meta.
It has gotten to a point where communities from Valve’s other games have started expressing their annoyance at how much developmental attention the game is getting. While their own games, such as Counter-Strike 2 or DOTA 2 stuck with slower updates.
But this is pretty much the natural order of things when a developer is preparing to launch a new live service product. Because they would prefer to bring all the attention to the upcoming game.
Bungie’s massively popular multiplayer game, Destiny 2, stopped active support and development recently in order to push the attention to their new game, Marathon. But so far, this decision has only garnered notoriety.
At an age where live service games have become the center of attraction, it can get really hard for developers to steer toward newer projects. Because the fans just want them to provide support for their favorite multiplayer games forever.
Deadlock already has a massive fanbase
Surprisingly, such is not the case with Valve’s Deadlock. In its initial stages, the project might have looked like a generic mess, but things changed after Neon Prime was converted to Deadlock.
This was thanks to their internal teams constantly vocalising the need for changes to the project. What Valve now has can be considered striking gold. Deadlock has been receiving enormous numbers of daily players even in its closed beta stage.
Another major reason for this happening is frequent updates that suspend the illusion of a game that is supposed to be in beta. Technically, the game in its current state can completely change at any time in the future.
Yet thousands of people will be back to play it at the sound of a new content update. That is specifically what happened with Deadlock’s Old Gods New Blood update when it first dropped..
I am pretty certain that something very similar is going to happen when the next big content update for the game drops later this year. So in this list I am going to discuss some of the essential new additions that should be expected.
Next batch of new faces in Deadlock
First things first, new characters are definitely something that is a top priority on everyone’s list of expected new content. Almost every major Deadlock update has focused on introducing new characters, adhering to a fun release cycle.
It should not be different this time either; in fact, in the past few months the whole community was already duped by multiple fake leaks of made-up characters. Quite frankly, some of them looked pretty well made, enough to fit right into the game’s world.
This has made a lot of people still latch on to the belief that these are real leaks. Only time will tell, but for now we can speculate on a few of these fakes. Cheshire Cat and Graf are the interesting choices, both in terms of design and story.
Deadlock’s world is lived in by all sorts of supernatural beings, so a character like Cheshire would fit right in. According to the leaked description, he is supposed to be a gangstar from Cursed Apple allied with a rodent in a sack.
So that makes him another brick in the wall for the crime syndicate ecosystem of Deadlock. The other character, Graf, seemed like an old vampire. Staying true to the mysterious lore of Backster Society, he is missing an arm in the concept art.
Other than these two, there are also pre-existing characters from the previous iteration of Deadlock, Neon Prime. But they never made the final cut due to a severe mismatch with the design of the game.
Although a lot of people seem to believe that valve could potentially repurpose these ditched characters and their systems into a new one, which would be more fitting.
Redesign of Existing Characters
Just second to new characters, one of the most anticipated things the fanbase is waiting for is the redesigns for some of the existing characters. This is because a lot of them are either unfinished or still using their neon-prime design.
Yamato, with her massive forehead being the biggest culprit. She looks completely out of place when compared with the other designs of the game. Vyper, Sinclair, and Viscous are also some of the remaining ones who are still waiting for their final designs.
Deadlock’s last few content updates dropped some of the most polished-looking character designs the game has ever seen. Such as Doorman, Mina, Silver, and many more. Their animations exude quality that does not match the unfinished ones.
Characters such as Viscous is a green blob and uses Kelvin’s model as a placeholder. We can literally compare their guns and see how similar they look. And Vyper is supposed to be a gorgon, but her current design makes her look like a regular reptile.
The good thing is that Deadlock has an incredible community of people who are actively making mods to change these models, and some of them look great. Valve even went the extra mile to hire some of these talented people.
So we may be looking at some incredible redesigns in the future. As for official redesigns; some of them were already leaked over the internet a while back. Characters such as Yamato, Vyper, Grey Talon, and Viscous had very different-looking designs straight from the isolated test server of the game.
Reworked Jungle Creeps
The jungle creeps, or denizens as they are called in Deadlock, are essential NPC enemies that sort of act as balancing pillars for the game. These are enemies who silently await their turn, as their sole purpose is to provide farm to help out the team economy.
You cannot have a MOBA without jungle creeps and lane creeps. But there is one glaring problem with the creeps in Deadlock. And the issue is pretty much in the same vein as the others on this list, i.e., the denizen designs currently being absolute misfits in the game.
Although some may argue that the gooey green aliens are perfect for a game that delves into occult and extraterrestrial media from the 50s. But having every single jungle creep be the same thing is most definitely boring, and quite frankly uninspired.
Even the mini boss that appears underground in the center of the game’s map is a culprit, because it is the same design but just scaled up. If we look at other MOBAs, jungle creeps are always a variety of creatures with their own unique traits.
Games such as League of Legends and Dota 2 are filled with unique designs for their jungle camps. So the same can be expected of Deadlock; only the question is if they are going to release the redesigns in the next update, or will we have to wait even longer?
The rumored PvE Game Mode
The Old Gods, New Blood content update for Deadlock was something so substantial that it almost gave everyone the illusion that the open beta for the game was right around the corner.
One of the biggest reasons for that was the introduction of a new game mode known as Street Brawl. It introduced a completely new kind of way to play the game where everyone ise allowed to equip items at the beginning of the matches based on RNG.
Things would start off like mid game team fights in standard a Deadlock mode. The sole objective would be taking down Guardians and Walkers, which would help progress rounds. And players would get access to new items to choose from every time a round got over.
Games in Street Brawl are fun and fast. Each match would be over by the fifteenth minute or even less, except in some rare cases. The mode has become quite the sensation and has a community of its own.
Now, the reason for bringing Street Brawl up in this discussion is because there’s a possibility that another interesting new game mode might make its way into the next update. I am specifically talking about the rumored PvE update.
Much has been said about this supposed mode over on social media in the past couple of months. Discussions have ranged from an allegedly fake PvE map to even actual news about Valve hiring some renowned devs to work on it.
Word on the street is that the developers behind the hit roguelite game, Risk of Rain 2, were hired to work on this new mode. So in the future we might just be looking at a spiritual successor to RoR 2 within Deadlock itself, which could be insanely fun.
This would be the perfect moment to actually tune up the regular jungle enemies as discussed previously, and repackage the whole game in a new update.
Changes to the map for balance
And that technically covers almost everything that is rumored or is guaranteed to be there in the next big content update. But exceptions should always be considered, and no matter how hyped everyone is for the game, it would be better to keep the expectations in check.
However, there are still a few things that need to be addressed, even outside some of the expected changes coming to the game. This includes the tier one towers which players fight to defend during the laning phase.
Problem being that the guardians are not pushovers at all. An aggressive opponent can easily hop and parry their way near the guardian’s vicinity and get away with kills. Some may feel like this is the proper way things should be since Deadlock is a hyper-aggressive title.
But a lot also feel that early guardians or towers in general should be way more powerful; at least that’s how it works in other MOBAs. Opponents are actively punished for over-extending near the tower’s vicinity and may get blown up immediately for it.
Surprisingly or unsurprisingly, there are also rumors that cover this exact issue, as apparently Valve plans to completely revamp the map design of Deadlock. This is in order to position the guardians in a way that would make it harder for players to directly challenge them.
The rumors also state that this version of the game’s map is actually being actively tested in the private test server of the game. And the developers are trying to figure out a way to implement it into the regular build.
Personal expectations and Conclusion
Other than all of that, I also have a personal wish for the next update. Which is the restoration of the character visual novels. Deadlock featured a mode in the game files that would retell individual character stories when it first became publicly available.
The only story we got to look at was the Lady Geist visual novel, and it seemed like a well-crafted attraction for lore hunters. Unfortunately, Valve may have abandoned that idea for now and all we can do for now is just patiently wait for it to resurface.
I know most of the things I mentioned in this list of expectations are a huge undertaking for a game that is still in closed alpha and free to play. But Vlave should also realize that Deadlock has grown way too big for its infancy.
Fans would not be satisfied with a half-measured content update. So most, if not all, expectations, at least some of them, do need to be met if they want want to make Deadlock the next big thing in the world of Esports.
