Valve Alters Deadlock's Direction Amid Industry Digitalisation

Deadlock Player Count Plummets, Valve Adjusts Development Strategy

Deadlock, Valve's MOBA-shooter, has seen a dramatic decline in players, with peak online numbers now barely exceeding 20,000. In response, Valve has announced a revised development approach.

The developer team will move away from a fixed bi-weekly update schedule. Future Deadlock patches will be released on a more flexible timeline, prioritizing quality over frequency. This shift, according to developers, allows for more thorough testing and implementation of significant changes. While major updates will be less frequent, they are expected to be more substantial. The team confirmed that hotfixes will continue to be deployed as needed.

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The previous two-week update cycle, while initially beneficial, proved insufficient for proper testing and integration of new features. This led to the decision to alter the development strategy.

Deadlock's player base has significantly shrunk from its peak of over 170,000 concurrent players to a current range of 18,000-20,000.

However, this doesn't necessarily signal the game's demise. Still in early development with no release date set, a 2025 or later launch is highly probable, particularly given the apparent internal prioritization of the new Half-Life project.

Valve's focus remains on delivering a high-quality game. The company believes that a polished product will organically attract and retain players, making this strategic shift more about developer efficiency than a response to immediate concerns. This approach mirrors the evolution of Dota 2's development cycle, which initially featured more frequent updates. Therefore, there is no immediate cause for alarm amongst fans.