New leak from Deadlock, Valve’s upcoming hero shooter, reveals gameplay and more characters

Leonardo Biazzi

Leonardo Biazzi

It’s like Dota and Overwatch had a child.

On May 22, someone leaked a brief clip of Valve's in-development, six-versus-six (6v6) hero shooter Deadlock, showing gameplay and additional characters.

Known gaming data miner and content creator PlayerIGN leaked Deadlock's gameplay clip on X. The video shows one of the characters moving across the map through a handrail system similar to the one in Bioshock Infinite.

Then, the person who recorded the video goes to the character selection screen and shows several heroes that we have never seen before: Ivy, Infernus, Haze, Kelvin, Lady Geist, Seven, Vindicta, Warden, Wraith, and Yamato. According to PlayerIGN, Deadlock's closed beta has 19 playable characters.

Reports describe Deadlock as a shooter with MOBA elements

Insider Gaming's reporter Tom Henderson has confirmed that the Deadlock leaks are real and revealed that the game is "very similar to Dota" in terms of gameplay and mechanics. This is because, according to Henderson, players will have to kill enemies and creeps to upgrade their hero throughout a match.

The currency used to buy items is called "souls" and according to Henderson, creeps and enemies will spawn a soul upon death. There's also a larger AI boss in the middle of the map that players must defeat.

Deadlock has different types of heroes such as healers, tanks, and DPS (Screenshot via Gabe Follower)
Deadlock has different types of heroes such as healers, tanks, and DPS (Screenshot via Gabe Follower)

All of this new information practically confirms that Deadlock is real, although Valve has yet to announce the game. The developer behind the gaming platform Steam and popular games CS2, Dota 2, Left 4 Dead, Half-Life, and Portal had left the hero shooter genre behind over the past years as Team Fortress 2 stopped getting regular updates.

It's currently unclear, though, when Valve will finish developing Deadlock for release. According to Henderson, the game is currently in the alpha stage and he predicts that Valve will release it "sometime in 2025."

That's all for now. However, stay tuned to esports.gg for more gaming news.