Deadlock

Okay, hear me out. This game has an unbelievably high learning curve if you, like me, have never played a MOBA. There’s so many moving parts and it can feel immensely overwhelming, but that’s not a fault of the game. If anything, I think, if you’re up for the challenge, it’s an immense strength.

So I went into this whole thing essentially blind back in late 2023, early 2024 essentially when it first got made public. Never played League or DOTA or what have you. Spent a lot of hours going Huh, what’s happening??? and dropped it.

And then in August of 2025 they dropped that 6 heroes update. And I saw Victor and my heart melted and I told myself I must learn this game. FOR HIM! (I have an immense soft spot for Frankstein’s creature-esque characters)

It took a lot of practice, but once I started actively trying to understand, things came more and more easily. And well, I’m not like a pro now by any means, but I can say with confidence that I understand what’s happening during my matches and can make calls, pick counter items, etc. Things I couldn’t even fathom having the knowledge for back in August.

And once you gain that understanding, you get a game that is just. So much fun. The characters have great designs, great lore, and incredible dialogue (Please go look up Vyper’s lines they’re all so fucking funny). The kits and abilities, while sometimes frustrating to go against, are generally really fun to use and experiment with. The big item catalogue allows for a lot of possibilities when it comes to playstyle. And the world of Deadlock itself is just so charming.

Like, genuinely, the lore is what made me sit down and study how to play MOBAs. Reading the backstories, looking at the in-universe ads, extrapolating lore from voicelines, it all fills me with this intrigue and whimsy I haven’t felt from a live service game in a long, long time.

It’s giving very early era Overwatch. It’s giving Season 5 Apex Legends. I’m so invested. And the game is still in closed beta! We don’t even have promotional material yet!!! My brain will genuinely explode the moment we get our first cinematic trailer. I’m genuinely EXCITED to see where this goes!!

Right now, I'd consider myself a Drifter main, though I'm also down to play Dynamo, Victor, Mirage, Doorman, and Mina. I'm also still trying new characters often, and have started branching out to Seven and Bebop lately. I usually play with my buddy who you'll see in a lot of of the screenshots below. (Hiii if you're reading this bestieee!) Right now, idk what I'd say my strengths are, maybe knowing when to get a sneaky Walker behind the enemies' backs? But I have a lot of weaknesses, like positioning, and confirming souls, and consistently counter buying, and Resisting the Urge to Kill, and- You get the idea. I'm still a fulltime student at Deadlock academy.

So yeah, Deadlock is my current obsession. It’s a game bursting with so much potential, even in its unfinished state. It’s genuinely worth doing a bit of homework for in order to learn how to play, because it’s such a blast once you understand the basics.