After its massive surge in September of 2024, Deadlock has been churning along through its early access period. Developers have been making sweeping changes to the game and have kept up a steady slew of balance patches to keep the meta evolving and gameplay fresh. But, after logging several hundred hours of gameplay in Deadlock, I have a few hopes and dreams of what I want to see before the game’s full release.
This one should be a no-brainer, but it would be great to be able to play games with no effect on my rank. This would allow me to test heroes against actual players and focus more on the fun of the game, rather than purely going for wins. I can say with absolute certainty that this will be a part of the full release, but still feels worth pointing out.
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A single-lane, maybe even 3v3 or 4v4 mode in Deadlock, would be a great way to disrupt the gameplay loop we currently have in the game and bring in another fun, innocent way to play the game. Many League of Legends players play ARAM even more than they play normal games, as sometimes you just want to hop in and mash abilities. This would be a blast in Deadlock’s engine and would be something we’d love to see in the full release.
As a former Overwatch player, I always loved being able to hop into a wacky custom game while waiting to find a game. I’d love to see something similar in Deadlock, even at a rudimentary level. Let us hop in some map, start looking at our build, play a quirky mini-game, hit some slot machines, etc. Adding something like this can contribute a lot to the character of a game, and Deadlock has a lot of great character all its own.
Deadlock has hero lore, but nothing in the way of a complete breakdown of the lore of the game outside of that. One of the beauties of having original characters is being able to build out who they are and their relationships with one another and the world around them. Seeing this played out in a comic or some kind of digital short would be a great way to become further immersed in the game.
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This one will be contentious, but I think it will become inevitable that Valve adds hero roles to Deadlock. Team balancing can be one of the easiest ways to gain an advantage in Deadlock right now, and that is evident when you watch high-level Deadlock like Deadlock Fight Night. Games like League of Legends have champions that are typically associated with a certain lane, but aren’t locked to that lane, even while having generalized roles like Bruiser or Assassin. In Overwatch 2, another game worth comparing Deadlock to, there are set roles that heroes are lumped into, and they can only function in that role (teams are restricted to one tank, 2 DPS, and 2 Supports).
Deadlock will likely air on the League of Legends side of this, but I would not be surprised to see Valve experiment with a strict role queue system at some point. At the end of the day, having a balance of front-line and back-line heroes is all we really need in Deadlock for now, but as more niche heroes are added down the line, I anticipate roles will become much clearer.
Being able to get a detailed breakdown of a Deadlock game would be a priceless commodity, especially for a young game that players are looking to improve at. Luckily, there are already community-made resources to meet this end, but still, something more robust in-game would be a massive step in the right direction before launch.
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Currently, community-made builds dominate the general zeitgeist for using the shop in Deadlock. However, what if there was a sophisticated enough item recommender that would steer players towards items to help them pick things to counter their vulnerabilities?
Died to Haze ult, again? Well, maybe buy Metal Skin. Even something like this could go a long way for Deadlock and could help educate newer players when the game releases.
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We know skins and all of that will be coming to Deadlock at release in order to turn on monetization for Valve, to a degree. But, for a game with a unique art style like Deadlock, I am actually excited to see what kinds of skins we get. This is a game already rich with creative ideas and direction, and I will be excited to see the direction it goes creatively.
It’s hard to say how many heroes Deadlock needs before launch, as the current roster already feels diverse and satisfactory. But, compared to games like Smite, Dota 2, or League of Legends, Deadlock is about 100 heroes short right now. It’s hard to say how far Valve will go before launch here, but I think another 5-10 heroes would make sense with new ones coming out near-monthly after that.
This feels odd to say in this way, but I just want something new and original from Deadlock when it launches. So much of this game’s calling card is its originality, both in its art and its genre-blending gameplay, so it seems fair to expect more of the same at launch. Much of what we have covered already is sourced from experiences in other games, but I would love to see something new and truly original in Deadlock when it fully releases.
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