Valve has issued a huge update to its in-development MOBA hero shooter Deadlock, propelling it to the top of Steam’s most-played games chart.
The update significantly updated the map, added six new heroes, new mobs, objectives, updated the HUD, healthbars, the Shop, and much more. Valve has updated the Deadlock engine code to the latest version of Source 2, improved anti-cheat, prediction improvements, rendering performance, audio performance, item art, and added new SFX for all hero Heavy and Light Melee. There’s loads more to this update, detailed on the Deadlock website.
Deadlock hit a concurrent peak of over 220,000 players overnight, smashing its all-time concurrent peak and making it the sixth most-played game on Steam last night. Deadlock remains in early development, and access is limited to friend invites via Valve’s playtesters, so the concurrent peak is truly impressive.
In a post on Steam, Valve issued an update on Deadlock development, and pointed to future updates. It said it’s working on large item redesigns and additions, and even alternate game modes “that expand the scope of the game,” although there’s no guarantee either makes it into the final launch version.
Other future updates will focus on Midboss (both the model and the layout to a degree), Guardians and Walkers, “which we do consider important but just haven’t gotten to yet and will be focusing on.” Hero remodels sound like they will be done later in the process, but we might see some of that work in upcoming updates.
There is still no word on a release date or even a release window for Deadlock, nor when the game will be expanded with a beta. It remains a game that Valve is working on while it continues to support other big hitters such as Counter-Strike 2 (easily the biggest game on Steam even now), Dota 2 (easily the second-biggest game on Steam, even now), and, occasionally, Team Fortress 2 (which remains one of the most-played games on Steam, even now). Based on the interest in Deadlock even at this stage, it looks like Valve will have another Steam hit on its hands when it eventually does come out.
And no, there isn’t a whiff of Half-Life 3 anywhere right now.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].