Valve has released a huge update to its in-development MOBA hero shooter Deadlock, propelling it to the top of the most played games chart on Steam.
The update significantly updated the map, added six new heroes, new monsters, objectives, updated HUD, health bars, shop and much more. Valve updated the Deadlock engine code to the latest Source 2 version, improved anti-cheat, prediction improvements, rendering performance, audio performance, item artwork, and added new SFX for all Heavy and Light Melee heroes. There’s much more to this update, detailed on the Deadlock website.
Deadlock reached a concurrent peak of over 220,000 players overnight, breaking its all-time concurrent record and making it the sixth most played game on Steam last night. Deadlock is still in its early stages and access is limited to friend invites through Valve testers, so the simultaneous spike is truly impressive.
In a post on Steam, Valve released an update on the development of Deadlock and highlighted future updates. He said he’s working on major redesigns and item additions, and even alternate game modes “that expand the scope of the game,” although there’s no guarantee this will make it into the final launch build.
Other future updates will focus on Midboss (both model and layout to some extent), Guardians, and Walkers, “which we consider important but have not yet addressed and will focus on.” Hero remodels appear to be done later in the process, but we might see some of this work in future updates.
There’s still no word on a release date or even a release window for Deadlock, nor when the game will be expanded with a beta. This remains a game that Valve is working on while continuing to support other big hitters such as Counter-Strike 2 (arguably the biggest game on Steam, even now), Dota 2 (arguably 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 point, it looks like Valve will have another Steam hit on its hands when it finally releases.
And no, there’s no whiff of Half-Life 3 anywhere at the moment.
Wesley is news director at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
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