Let it never be said that Valve has lost the power to surprise people. Especially after Half-Life Alyx and Counter-Strike 2, it started to feel like Valve was returning its attention to its greatest legacy game series. Maybe Portal 3 would finally happen, or a new Left 4 Dead, or, dare we say it, the mythical Half-Life 3. But no. Based on what we know so far, the new Valve game is Deadlock, a hero shooter in the vein of Overwatch 2 and Apex Legends. It’s not officially confirmed yet, but a new, mysterious update on the Steam backend could suggest an announcement is inbound.
Just to reiterate, as it stands, Deadlock is only the hypothetical new Valve game. There are plenty of reasons to believe it’s real, including footage and comments from people who claim that they’re playtesters, but until the Dota 2 maker says it’s happening, Deadlock remains a possibility rather than a certainty. A multiplayer game featuring different characters with varied stats and abilities, there is also a page for Deadlock on SteamDB.
Currently, it is unknown where this page originated, but it lists updates for Deadlock dating back as far as 2020 and records user numbers for the shooter’s ostensible ongoing player tests. Considering the comprehensiveness of the SteamDB page, there are three possibilities regarding its provenance.
In the first scenario, it’s the page for the actual game and its token was submitted by Valve itself. In the second scenario, it’s still the page for the actual game, but it’s appeared on SteamDB as a result of a leak from a playtester. And then there’s the third possibility, that the page is an extremely elaborate hoax.
With that in mind, we come to the most recent update. Until Monday July 29, the install directory on this page – the default root directory that contains all the related program files – was named ‘Project8Staging,’ essentially a generic codename.
Now, however, as identified by SteamDB creator Pavel Djundik, that install directory has been renamed to ‘Deadlock.’ This could signal that the page and its associated files are being given their proper labels, which in turn might suggest that Valve is preparing to publish a frontend Steam store page. Or it could be nothing. It depends how optimistic you’re feeling.
We’ll see what happens with Deadlock. But in other Valve-related news, make sure you avoid the new Team Fortress 2 scam.
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