Good gameplay, interesting characters, and engaging mechanics. Deadlock’s got it all but can they communicate it right?
Deadlock, Valve’s curious blend of hero shooter and MOBA, has been the talk of the town the past few days and with good reason. Despite the odd blend of genres, it comes together nicely while offering something distinctly its own. Beyond its occult rendition of prohibition era New York, there is a deep and intense competitive multiplayer game here. One that’s so attractive that it’s already garnered over 100,000 players even though it’s not officially released yet.
What makes the game so engaging comes down to its MOBA roots and how it expands it to fit with the hero shooter genre. You have lanes with mindless minions running down them, turret-like equivalents that defend your territory, a base that you fall back to and need to protect, etc. Then add its dynamic movement options and gunfights, and you get something that’s hectic, exciting, and mechanically dense to a fault.
This is a problem attached to any game under the MOBA genre. These games have a lot of systems and mechanics in them that it becomes difficult to learn how to play. Learning how to play a MOBA often involves having to comb through piles of outside information because the tutorials offered are lacking at best and downright useless at worst.
For many, this is a big turnoff to the genre and understandably so. Who wants to sit down and read pages of guides and tutorials just to understand the basics of a game? So the question has to be asked: will Deadlock be any different?
Burden of Information
The initial impression is: no. Deadlock throws you into this sea of MOBA and hero shooter mechanics, gives you three short tutorials, then leaves you to figure out how to swim. This isn’t surprising as these are the developers who made Dota 2, the most mechanically dense MOBA in the market. However, Deadlock has a few things going for it that makes the learning curve a little less steep.
First is that at its core, Deadlock is a third person shooter. The mechanic of point-and-click to shoot your enemy is universally understood by everyone along with holding down a button to move your character. It’s more intuitive than the typical way MOBA’s are played and it’s a skill that’s easily trainable.
The second is that Valve has taken the lessons they’ve learned from the item system in Dota 2 and applied it to Deadlock. The items in Deadlock are widely varied but neatly arranged into the kind of benefits they give your character. There’s even a feature where you can take the item build from a guide and immediately apply it for yourself.
While nice, all of these are just easing the burden of information on the player. Being able to easily parse through items is appreciated until you realize that there’s still dozens of items you need to familiarize yourself with. And while shooting is important, learning what you, your teammates, and your enemies characters can do is still crucial to your success.
All that is to say that Deadlock will have the same uphill battle that all MOBA’s have. For new players, learning the game will take considerable time and effort but from what we’ve seen it’s worth it. There’s a good game here, you just have to soldier through those first few hours.
Banner image from Steam.