Valve hasn’t responded to our emails about Deadlock, an alleged unannounced Valve hero shooter which is leaking all over the internet. That’s pretty typical for Valve, which tends to say nothing about leaks or rumors before one day dropping a casual blog post announcement. We’ll see if that’s how they play it this time.
For now, we can’t say for sure whether or not Deadlock is really Valve’s next game, but we can be sure that someone has created a very Valve-like hero shooter prototype, at the least. First some screenshots leaked, and now there’s gameplay video out there via PlayerIGN on X (who is not the website IGN, to be clear). Watch below:
If it’s real and still looks like this, Deadlock will be Valve’s first third-person shooter (unless you count Alien Swarm, but it’s not really the same). Valve-watcher Gabe Follower described it this way last week: “6 vs 6 battling on huge maps 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.”
The BioShock Infinite comparison is on point. Watching the video, you’d almost believe you were looking at a prototype for an Infinite multiplayer mode. It’s not just the sky rails, but also the city’s early 1900s aesthetic—which is very Valve, too, as seen in Team Fortress 2’s turn-of-the-century American design and illustration inspirations.
The video also includes some character descriptions. Some of them look cool, though some of the decisions I question. There’s a blue sniper, for instance, which seems like an odd choice given that Overwatch also has a blue sniper. Could she not have been green?
They do look quite Valve-ey, though, and a couple could even be alternate reality TF2 characters: The robot character our leaker is playing as is wearing The Spy’s brown suit, and Infernus looks a lot like The Sniper and Pyro.
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If Deadlock is genuinely Valve’s next game, it’s possible any number of things will be different when it releases (if it releases)—these leaks are said to be from a beta version.
A third-person lane shooter is probably not what I would’ve said if someone asked me what kind of game I hoped Valve would pursue next, but I’m slightly surprised to find myself having fun in the new free-to-play Ubisoft shooter, XDefiant, so maybe I don’t always know what I want.
Let us know in the comments how you’re feeling about it, and we’ll let you know if Valve confirms or denies anything.