Brittany Alva 
A leaked Deadlock gameplay video gave fans a look at Valve’s upcoming 6v6 hero shooter, and it includes information about the playable characters.
Valve hasn’t even announced Deadlock but a load of footage of the game has found its way to social media. This has shown off a bit about the map, including a funky MOBA-style design and the ability to fast-travel with ziplines. The aesthetics and gameplay style, with towers defending the four lanes and AI-controlled trooper characters pushing with players, hint at a middleground between action MOBA Smite and various other games ranging from Overwatch to Team Fortress 2.
While the leaks have focused on the gameplay, a hero shooter needs heroes to play as. New leaked footage showed off some of the playable characters that are included in this early build of the game.
All confirmed playable characters in Deadlock
There are 19 characters available in Deadlock, with 10 of them being labeled as “Great for New Players.”
Abilities weren’t shown off for characters, but names and a short description were provided for 11 of the characters. They explained a bit about their kit, with each hero having unique abilities and playstyles.
Here are all of the characters in the Deadlock leak and what they do:
- Ivy: Slows and stuns enemies and empowers allies
- Infernus: Deals damage over time with burning abilities, also fast
- Haze: Stealthily deals close damage
- Grey Talon: Has traps and snipes enemies from long distances
- Kelvin: Freezes and slows enemies while gliding around and heals allies
- Lady Geist: Hurts herself but also drains enemies’ health
- Seven: AoE electric damage
- Vindicta: Sniper who can do damage over time
- Warden: Frontliner who may be able to debuff enemies
- Wraith: Isolates enemies to fight one on one
- Yamato: Has charged attacks
Characters including Vindicta and Infernus are labeled as beginner characters. This means that their kits are probably more intuitive or simple, though it could also indicate that they are less dependent on actual aiming.
The leaked footage of Deadlock ultimately comes from an early build of the game. More characters could be added in the final version, some might be gated behind microtransactions, and others may be reimagined with different abilities.
New Information on Deadlock Ziplines and Game Times
Besides seeing information about the characters, the Deadlock leak also showed a bit more information about the ziplines. While ziplines were already leaked, the new footage shows them in action.
This includes that the ziplines have a speed boost that has a cooldown timer. This speed boost has a cooldown of at least 255 seconds, which hints that games may be lengthier than those of current hero shooters on the market.
League of Legends and Dota 2 games both last around 40 minutes on average. The length of these cooldowns may imply that Deadlock games will last that long as well.
