Valve’s third-person MOBA shooter Deadlock just got a fresh injection of characters, introducing six new heroes with a staggered release schedule that puts the community in charge. Mina, the vampire-themed glass cannon, kicks things off today, and players will vote on the order of the other five heroes over the next two weeks.
Instead of dropping all six at once, Valve decided to space out the new arrivals, unlocking one hero every two days on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. The voting happens after each game, players earn a vote to cast at the Hideout, a new pre-game lobby that replaces the old Dashboard UI. The Hideout isn’t just a waiting room; it lets you invite friends, join others, and mess around with interactive terminals for Play, Watch, and Learn functions, plus a practice range to test abilities without loading into the Sandbox. You can still access the legacy sandbox via a teleporter or the Play Menu.
The new heroes joining Mina are Billy, Paige, The Doorman, Victor, and Drifter. Valve plans to follow each hero’s release with balance tweaks, probably to keep things from getting out of hand. Visual updates also landed on the map with lighting changes, and the character selection screen got a “major visual overhaul,” with more hero updates planned down the line.
Despite still being in closed beta and competing with big names, Deadlock holds a steady spot on Steam’s charts, sitting at number 38 with over 24,000 concurrent players and a 24-hour peak nearing 29,000. It’s neck and neck with Blizzard’s Overwatch 2, though way behind giants like Dota 2 and Counter-Strike 2. The game has carved out a solid niche, even if it’s not the biggest fish in the pond.
Mina is a classic glass cannon who thrives on quick bursts of damage thanks to her passive, Love Bites. She can morph into bats to escape sticky situations and grows stronger as she triggers her passive during matches. Her ultimate, Nox Nostra, unleashes a swarm of bats that silence nearby enemies, a pretty cool crowd control tool. Each Love Bites trigger stacks vampiric power, letting skilled players snowball hard.
Valve paused work on Hero Labs to focus on these new heroes, but mentioned they might revisit some Hero Labs concepts later. The staggered release is a break from Valve’s usual content drops, giving them room to tweak balance and listen to player feedback after each hero lands.
But again, I am scared that this game might flop like the others from Valve, which have seemingly had a strong start and then just received too many bad updates, similar to what Deadlock received recently.
