Why does Deadlock exist?

nnytk

nnytk

Member
Hi everyone, first thread here, been lurking and active for a while now.

Yesterday I tried Deadlock again, with a friend. Curious to see how the beta evolved we played a match. It felt like "gentrified Smite" with some Overwatch vibes for the team fights.

And I couldn't help but wonder... For who is this game?

Valve has such incredible dormant IP.

Where is Team Fortress 3?
Where is a new Left 4 Dead?
Why aren't there more Half-life games or spin-offs?
Portal sequels?

Valve has such incredible talent, why would they pour so much energy in Deadlock instead of the projects listed above? Because the polish and art style of Deadlock are pretty damn good...

Counterstrike is still huge. A Payday-like coop spin-off would do insane numbers.

Yet they create a weird MOBA third person shooter that doesn't seem to improve on what other games already do.

Absolutely baffling. Maybe this is just the millennial in me, but I really don't understand Valve's decision here. And as someone who grew up with Half-life, CS and TF2, Deadlock is not for me...
 
Money. Steam, their hardware, and their OS are the main investments at the moment. SteamOS is definitely the most lucrative if they're able to pull it off completely. I do think it has been mentioned somewhere before that they only focus on making a game if it is innovative enough to be greenlit, at least that is Gaben's sentiment regarding Half-life.
 
You answered your own question: such talented developers would always rathers go and do their own take on a new genre. Only mediocre devs get stuck doing the same franchises over and over again. Did you forgot the disaster that was trying to sell left 4 dead 2 full price due to how little content there was?
 
If you're expecting to get Half-Life, Portal, Left 4 Dead or even Team Fortress games out of IceFrog, literally one of the designers whose work has been instrumental in defining the MOBA genre, then your expectations couldn't get more off base than that.

If anything, the reason why Deadlock exists is because it beautifully merges incredible gunplay and gamefeel with insane mobility and traversal mechanics and a map that is intricate in its surprisingly vertical layout as it is exquisitely designed -- all on top of being a terrific MOBA, as you'd expect from the company that made DOTA 2. The distinctive art and audio design, as well as best-in-class production values and underlying technology that we've come to expect from any Valve product are all just the cherry on top of what at its very core is simply a magnificent game.

Also, Half-Life 3 is right around the corner, so perhaps just look forward to that?
 
Valve make a cool new IP, great character design, high skill level, interesting mechanics. Really cool game.

And you also think it doesn't improve what others do? I guess you've not played similar mobas to it lol?

Also a really small team at valve are working on deadlock. Most people are working on HL3.
 
the same reason you exist, bad decisions by the higher ups.

i kid i kid, jeeez, MOBAS make money, money make happy.
 
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Since it's Valve, it's because that is what they want to do. And that is all there is it to it, these guys just work on projects they want to. That's why TF2 has only an external contractor working on fixes and whatnot, nobody wants to handle that anymore. It's basically abandoned and mostly community driven at this point.

I agree with your sentiment by the way. I'm not a fan of Deadlock and I won't spend any time on it in its current state. Last 24-hours peak was 60k, so it's not doing great compared to the heavy hitters (CS2 and Dota2). But the game is still in beta and it has plenty of time to become popular.
 
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If you have fuck you money you can do whatever you want instead of doing what the market wants.

Gabe Newell just bought a luxury yacht shipyard in my country by the way...
yacht rock GIF
 
nnytk said:
Where is Team Fortress 3?
Where is a new Left 4 Dead?
Why aren't there more Half-life games or spin-offs?
Portal sequels?
Click to expand...
They don't care for those franchises anymore, as a matter of fact anyone who cares about those franchises are more than likely not working at Valve anymore. To answer your question, Deadlock exists because Overwatch failed and there is a Hero Shooter vacuum right now, and it is mostly filled with Marvel Rivals, but I don't think Valve was counting on that game working as well as it did when they were making Deadlock, so I guess climbing the same mountain Concord already claimed.
 
Valve is run like a self-organizing hippie community, people work on whatever interests them.
That used to be true for a long time anyway, but I think they are getting better at focusing efforts nowadays. They famously had wheels on their desks so they could move around in the building.

That's the environment where TF2 lost developers, was left dangling and they only had the janitor working on it occasionally. Personally I think they did not want to work on TF2 because the game is a sausage party lacking diversity, a relic from the past . They want to make new stuff with women and representation.
However, there are rumors of Valve having hired new people that want to work on the game and data-mining points to a TF2 update with an engine change.
 
Valve only does GAAS now. The one exception is that they might do an Alyx sequel to help sell another VR headset.

And really everything Valve does wrt Steam is mainly to funnel players to their GAAS games.
 
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Holammer said:
However, there are rumors of Valve having hired new people that want to work on the game and data-mining points to a TF2 update with an engine change.
Click to expand...

Where did you hear that? With engine change do you mean Source 2? That would be awesome, TF2 would benefit massively from Source 2, even if I have to admit the current guy maintaining the game has done a great job at improving performances on Source 1.
 
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Icefrog is trying something new, that in itself is a good thing. I've been off Dota for a long time, and Deadlock isn't for me (too much farming/leveling). But it's nice to see new things nonetheless.
 
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I feel like it was just an idea that someone had and they rolled with it incase it was something that "hit" somewhere. Just trying something "new" I guess.

nnytk said:
Where is Team Fortress 3?
Where is a new Left 4 Dead?
Why aren't there more Half-life games or spin-offs?
Portal sequels?
Click to expand...
Questions we all ask, for sure. But TBH with the rumor of a new Half-Life being kicked around for awhile, also the potential for a new Team Fortress, that's enough for me. I feel like it's because a lot of the people that were connected to those projects are gone.

While not Valve, I did see Mike Booth (L4D creator) say that he's working on a project that is "a 4-player co-op shooter built on the foundations of what made L4D special." So, may be worth keeping tabs on.
 
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Why are Raven working on Call of Duty instead of Hecatomb or a new Jedi game?

Why are Nintendo not working on StarFox or F-Zero?

Where's my Metal Gear Rising 2?

It is what it is man. Videogames are business and the stuff we hardcore grownups want might not be what the market wants.
 
TintoConCasera said:
It is what it is man. Videogames are business and the stuff we hardcore grownups want might not be what the market wants.
Click to expand...
The truest words that are the hardest to read, lol.

There are so many sequels and remakes I want from IPs that I know people love and miss, but have just been neglected.

But I've accepted that they will likely never ever happen. :cry:
 
nnytk said:
Where is Team Fortress 3?
Where is a new Left 4 Dead?
Why aren't there more Half-life games or spin-offs?
Portal sequels?

Valve has such incredible talent, why would they pour so much energy in Deadlock instead of the projects listed above? Because the polish and art style of Deadlock are pretty damn good...
Click to expand...
We know for sure that Valve HAD incredible talent.
We don't know for sure if this is still the case.
HL Alyx was good, but not as good as of the game you quoted...
 
They felt that Dota 2 wasn't ruining enough lives with the post doctorate levels of research you need to understand all the mechanics and interactions so they made a whole separate game to fry nerd's brains and make sure they never feel tempted to outside.
 
mèx said:
Where did you hear that? With engine change do you mean Source 2? That would be awesome, TF2 would benefit massively from Source 2, even if I have to admit the current guy maintaining the game has done a great job at improving performances on Source 1.
Click to expand...
Tyler McVicker and many others datamine anything Valve publishes. They often find traces of other projects in Counterstrike updates.
Here's Tyler's most recent video. Bit of a loon, but the best known personality talking about this stuff.

 
justiceiro said:
You answered your own question: such talented developers would always rathers go and do their own take on a new genre. Only mediocre devs get stuck doing the same franchises over and over again. Did you forgot the disaster that was trying to sell left 4 dead 2 full price due to how little content there was?
Click to expand...
Good point. I don't like the innovation they're trying to pull off though. Or the direction. It would make sense for more of these types of innovative projects to come out too.
 
ozz ex machina said:
Valve make a cool new IP, great character design, high skill level, interesting mechanics. Really cool game.

And you also think it doesn't improve what others do? I guess you've not played similar mobas to it lol?

Also a really small team at valve are working on deadlock. Most people are working on HL3.
Click to expand...
I played Dota 3.7 for years, LoL beta, some Smite but that didn't click and similar smaller projects.

Maybe I'm being to harsh on it but there's something about the combat that feels off... It feels a lot like Marvel Rivals.

I had no clue about this HL3 news, or I totally forgot about it. Sounds exciting though.
 
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I'd rather they make what they are passionate about.

I've played enough deadlock to know it will be a hit. Maybe not dota 2 or CS hit, but it'll be a relevant game for many.

If it came of console too it would be a wild card.
 
Valve are in the enviable position where they can make whatever the fuck they want without having some market analyst greenlight it first.

Whether or not Deadlock succeeds makes zero difference to them financially.
 
This is the question you decide to ask on September 1st 2025? You would ask this during the same era where 200+ adults reported to Haven Entertainment Studios Inc to work full time with full salary on Jade Raymond's Fairgame$? You read that right. Sony is still knowingly greenlighting hundreds of Canadian video game developers, to drive to Haven Entertainment Studios Inc every morning, to work earnestly on Jade Raymond's Fairgame$. The studio is in Montreal, where the average rent is $1,850 per month, indicating these developers probably bring in a fairly tidy salary. Haven Entertainment Studios Inc only has one game they've got credits for having worked on. Do you know what this game is? The game is Concord, for which they provided technical support.

Tomorrow these people will once again make their journey to Haven Entertainment Studios Inc, to put another 8 hours into Jade Raymond's Fairgame$ on behalf of Sony. Hundreds of them.

How much longer will Kenichiro let Herman play with his paper? Hard to say GAF, hard to say.
 
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You sound a bit too dismissive about Deadlock. It is a master-class MOBA shooter, an accomplishment in how it smoothly blends verticality, traversals, melee, 3rd person shooting with traditional MOBA mechanics.

As someone who (also) played QuakeWorld, UT, CS 1.6, L4D, TF classic, TF2, I can only admire Valve for creating Deadlock and would love to see it become a huge success in the online (competitive) scene.
And as someone who has also played Smite and Overwatch, I can say Deadlock is in a league of it's own.
 
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