I’ve never been into MOBAs or hero shooters, but Deadlock has me hooked

Now that the veil has been lifted from Valve’s latest creation, I’m pleased to announce that I’ve joined Deadlock-olics Anonymous, who, just like in my teenage years, spent an unreasonable amount of hours on the servers.

But why? At first glance, this game shouldn’t really appeal to me as much as it does.

Ambitiously challenged, heroically reluctant

Deadlock is a six-on-six hero shooter with creeps and lanes like the MOBAs you know and love. In fact, all of this should be disqualifying. My FPS indoctrination came in the era of bootleg copies and no internet access, single-player campaigns of games like Blood, ShameAnd Half-lifeas I bravely struggled through each confrontation and quickly ran back to grab all the remaining medical supplies.

Fast forward 25 years and I still can’t hit the broad side of a skyscraper to save my life, and I’d still lose any reflex-based competition to elderly grandmas and wooden figurines. So my enjoyment of shooters doesn’t really come from hard-fought victories, and I’m always looking for ways to inject brains rather than brawn into a confrontation. I’m the guy the Spy was made for Teamfort 2and I’m one of those idiots who never stops, never flanks Counterattack that make you so angry, especially when I’m on your team.

Hero shooters and MOBAs both have too much of a pointless package for me. The former makes me feel like I’m wielding artificially limited toolsets and fighting obscene power spikes while yearning for a more level playing field. The latter drives me away with the mountain of theory that gets wiped out and rebuilt with every passing patch. When I feel like diving into encyclopedias of strategy, I stick to chess. At least there I don’t have to worry about a strategy-breaking game update every few weeks.

What I’m saying is that I really, really shouldn’t like it Deadlock—and yet I do it! And for this blissful age of limited access and low-stakes gaming, I’m not even that bad at it.

Stuck: A Great Formula

The moment I got access to Deadlock A few weeks ago (thanks to a colleague here at Dot Esports) I did exactly what you might expect from the above.

In retrospect, I may have been lucky to be playing during the off-hours when matchmaking was closed, as it forced me to mess around in easy PvE matches, exploring the core gameplay and heroes on offer without getting torn apart by mean, nasty human opponents along the way. Based on my history with TF2Dear Spy, It will come as no surprise that I tried Haze right away. However, when I had little success or enjoyment with it, I honestly thought I wouldn’t find much to like here.

But, you know, McGinnis was fine, and I enjoyed spamming the barrage. Warden was clearly strong, but also clearly wasted on me. Eventually I stumbled upon Lady Geist, and I found happiness and home. A strong AoE that can reliably take out creeps early, with a big helpful “IT COMES BACK HERE TOO, you idiot” blob? Health-draining ways to help me recover from poorly handled teamfights?

Ooooooooooh yeah.

But the best part of the Deadlock Experience is how I can still be helpful, even when I’m objectively terrible. You’ll find me with double-digit kills and slightly behind in the farm race, split-pushing with gleeful abandon and scoring opportunistic takedowns on Walkers and Guardians. I may be able to take our opponents to the skies, but I’ll claw back the difference with a handful of Spirit Urns and Shrine snipes.

This breadth and depth of engagement options makes me appreciate what others find appealing in MOBAs. Somehow, it all seems to work: deadlocktracker.gg, in what must be an administrative error, lists me as one of the top two percent of players per DLT rating. But that’s really just the icing on the cake.

One caveat though: I don’t expect this to last long. As a chess player (and someone who enjoyed the early days of the digital CCG craze, but much less the late phase), I prefer glacial gaming experiences where metagames are allowed to simmer and be resolved, where slow early uptake and conservative attitudes aren’t punished, and the knowledge gained remains applicable long after. For now, the speed of knowledge acquisition in this small community isn’t being boosted by third-party sites and a large number of eyes, making this a slow oasis in the hyper-fast desert of gaming.

I don’t expect “throw Essence Bombs in the vague direction of opponents and split-push with decent timing” to remain a viable strategy as we move closer to 1.0, but in the meantime I’m having a ton of fun with it. Deadlock.