alve hasn’t responded to our emails about Deadlock, an alleged unannounced Valve hero shooter which is leaking all over the internet. That’s pretty typical for Valve, which tends to say nothing about leaks or rumors before one day dropping a casual blog post announcement. We’ll see if that’s how they play it this time.
For now, we can’t say for sure whether or not Deadlock is really Valve’s next game, but we can be sure that someone has created a very Valve-like hero shooter prototype, at the least. First some screenshots leaked, and now there’s gameplay video out there via PlayerIGN on X (who is not the website IGN, to be clear). Watch below:
If it’s real and still looks like this, Deadlock will be Valve’s first third-person shooter (unless you count Alien Swarm, but it’s not really the same). Valve-watcher Gabe Follower described it this way last week: “6 vs 6 battling on huge maps with 4 lanes. Usable abilities and items. Tower defense mechanics. Fantasy setting mixed with steampunk. Magicians, weird creatures and robots. Fast travel using floating rails, similar to Bioshock Infinite.”
The BioShock Infinite comparison is on point. Watching the video, you’d almost believe you were looking at a prototype for an Infinite multiplayer mode. It’s not just the sky rails, but also the city’s early 1900s aesthetic—which is very Valve, too, as seen in Team Fortress 2’s turn-of-the-century American design and illustration inspirations.
