Deadlock’s cast of heroes will be expanding significantly over the next two weeks, with six new characters being introduced one-by-one. The new heroes coming to Valve’s steampunk MOBA include a vampire, a doorman, a Frankenstein-style monster, and a goat.
The first new character, Mina the vampire, is live in game now, but the release schedule for the rest of the new heroes is yet to be decided–players will be able to vote on which character is released next, with a new hero dropping every other day in a rolling update reminiscent of Valve’s TF2 days.
Mina is introduced as a glass cannon who can deliver quick bursts of Spirit damage from a distance. She can also turn into a swarm of bats to escape sticky situations, and her ult unleashes an even bigger swarm to hunt down and silence enemies.
The other new characters arriving over the next two weeks haven’t been detailed yet, but we do know their names: Billy, a demonic goat, Paige, a book-themed mage, The Doorman, the Frankenstein-esque monster Victor, and the menacing Drifter. These characters’ early iterations were accidentally leaked earlier this year when a private test build of the game was booted up on stream.
Players will be able to vote for the character they want to be released next using the voting booth in the brand-new Hideout–a personal virtual space where you can hang out in between matches. The Hideout has various terminals that can be used to access game functions, as well as a practice range for quickly testing characters and abilities. You can also invite friends to your Hideout, or visit theirs.
The latest update also comes with visual upgrades for the map, as well as a major visual overhaul to the character select UI. Some heroes have also received visual updates, and Valve has said that players can expect more hero updates in future.
Deadlock is still in limited early access, and requires an invite from a current playtester to get into the game. The game is still in active development, and regularly receives major overhauls to its key systems. Valve hasn’t indicated when it expects the game to release in full, or even when it will move to open-access beta.
