Deadlock
News
Four lanes become three as Valve sets about simplifying Deadlock for the masses.
After months of minor patches and a dwindling beta playerbase, Valve has issued a major patch and map update for Deadlock with sweeping changes across the board. The big change players will notice right away, however, is a simplified map — the game’s four lanes have been cut down to three.
Visuals map-wide have been changed to reflect the refit. Neutral camps, vents, powerups, and more have been shuffled around to accommodate the change, which may even be reversed if Valve developers aren’t happy with how the player base adjusts.
From four lanes to three: Deadlock aligned with similar MOBAs with massive map update
Deadlock was already unique in that it was an over-the-shoulder third-person MOBA, but it’s fourth lane added significant complexity to the match. For the most part, players went head-to-head in single lanes while a fifth supported an ally or roamed.
We’re now likely to see matches play out more traditionally; three dual lanes will most likely be the meta, but there’s always room for mid-lane stacking and rotating. We’ll have to see how the meta shifts but it’s a huge change to the Deadlock we know so far.
The mid boss has remained in his chamber, but it now sits below the center of the mid lane with windows allowing players above to see if the boss is being taken. Sprint speed has been doubled to allow faster traversal of the map, and many of the game’s heroes have received adjustments and model improvements.
The map changes aren’t all that’s new in Deadlock. Players won’t need to last hit enemy Troopers to summon Soul Orbs, while changes have been made to make them easier to farm during the laning phase.
Optimize your settings so you can avoid lag throughout matches.
Leonardo Biazzi
The Feb. 25 update comes at a critical time for Valve and Deadlock.Early hypesaw the active player base skyrocket last September, but since then it’s been all downhill as a lack of big updates or progress had many fearing the worst. 90% of those who played in September have dropped the game with a measly 17,000 active this past monthaccording to SteamDB.
We’ll see how many return with the map refresh and a general simplification of the MOBA. There’s plenty more that arrived in the update, some of which we’re covering below in the full Feb. 25 patch notes for Deadlock. The update is available now via Steam.
General changes
User Interface
There’s plenty more in today’s patch including an extensive list of hero content improvements, bug fixes, hero lab updates, and more. Head to the official patch notes for more!
