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| Yeah...pass by I tried so hard 02/26/2026, 12:14pm PST | ||||
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| Turns out taking the niche sweaty tryhard, hard to get into MOBA genre and adding an additional layer of twitch shooter reflex requirements wouldn't result in the biggest Venn diagram overlap. Maybe it's the best goddamn thing ever if that overlap is you, but jesus christ what kind of player base size is that?
Every streamer is gushing about it because they're exactly that kind of sweaty weirdo, and because it's Valve. Steamcharts tells the truth though. The game was never close to as popular as the first months after the beta invite round in August 2024. After just a couple months it fell to eight percent of that level and stayed there for over half a year. It got a recent spike with releasing whopping 12 new heroes and a brawl mode, but still never topped 75% of the launch numbers and after just 2 weeks it's plummeting again. They did what Overwatch did when it got desperate: added a cat. 
Two of them! 
The big thing streamers are saying will save this game is the new brawl mode. They say this because it's just ARAM mode (All Random All Mid) that every other MOBA has included as a casual option and it usually becomes the most popular. I don't think that's going to be the case. I think Deadlock is at its best during the first 5 minutes; it's a simple 2v2 duel in a small area and you don't have to worry about the super complicated items or map awareness yet. Tryhards love the later game with tons of items, traversal, and macro strategies. Brawl mode eliminates both of those and you're left with a constant clusterfuck fight with a limited field of view. And if it's more than halfway to being a shooter, why wouldn't fans of constant team brawl just play Overwatch or Marvel Rivals instead? It's a shame because it's obvious a ton of work and care went into the art, animations, and character designs. It's such a ridiculous demand of genre masteries though. I've played thousands of hours of Overwatch and MOBAs, and even I gave up trying to keep track of it all. Who is this appealing to outside the streamer class? |
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Yeah...pass by 02/26/2026, 12:14pm PST  |
