Make no mistake, Deadlock is coming for Overwatch’s hero shooter crown

Deadlock was Valve’s worst-kept secret for most of 2024, but now that it’s in the public eye players are doing everything they can to get into the alpha. With a promising player count right out the gate and its status as a direct competitor to Overwatch 2, will this game be the one that kills the Blizzard franchise and puts itself on top?

Say what you will about Overwatch 2, but the game has persevered through a rocky launch and disappointment after disappointment for players. From the single-player content getting canned entirely to the never-ending controversy around 5v5 vs 6v6, fans who wanted a good hero shooter have remained glued to the game in spite of these woes.

Its teamplay, wide roster of characters with a ton of personality, tight gunplay, and industry-leading presentation and polish have kept Overwatch 2 at the forefront of the genre. It’s easy to forget just how good Overwatch looks and how great it feels to play when you’ve had the game in your hands for years.

New takes on the hero shooter genre like Concord have failed to live up to the “Overwatch killer” moniker placed on them by people who want to see Overwatch 2 fail, but Deadlock has a real chance of making a dent in OW2’s player base. Can it actually kill the game, though? Let’s look at the numbers.

Deadlock’s player count booms despite closed alpha

Let’s get one thing out of the way: Deadlock is a runaway success for Valve. Between their “closed” alpha being one of the best free marketing strategies ever devised to the game being fun and engaging enough to maintain a massive player base, this game is going to make a lot of money once cosmetics are added.

With people sticking to the title so hard despite it having no ranked mode or a progression system to work through, people are clearly in love with the core gameplay. I’m included here, considering I’ve already put about 200 hours in, myself. There’s a lot to love about Deadlock.

SteamDB

There’s a clear indication of when Deadlock’s existence was made public by Valve. Everyone wanted in, and its current peak player count is a huge step up on Overwatch 2’s Steam numbers.

SteamDB

However, these stats are best taken with a grain of salt. A large portion of Overwatch 2’s player base on PC still plays the game through battle.net, and it has an active player base on consoles. The difference between these games’ player counts are much more narrow than they’d appear based on Steam charts alone. There’s a chance Overwatch 2 has more players than Deadlock currently.

Bear in mind that Deadlock is in early development, and is still in an invite-only Alpha stage. The player count will no doubt shoot up astronomically once it’s available to the public. If the consistent player counts of DOTA 2 and Counter-Strike are anything to go by, Deadlock’s got the potential to corner a massive portion of the hero shooter market with its hero shooter/MOBA hybrid formula.

There’s another thing Deadlock has going for it, too: Content creators.

Leaving Overwatch for greener pastures

Sure, Deadlock is a hot topic and is bound to get covered by every adjacent content creator under the sun. It mixes elements from most popular multiplayer games on the market right now, and it’s got potential to appeal to everyone.

However, there are many content creators jumping ship from their mainstay games in favor of Deadlock, with people as big as AverageJonas quitting Valorant entirely to focus on creating Deadlock content.

And, though there aren’t many high-profile Overwatch creators abandoning the game they’re known for just yet, they are dipping their toes in. OW creators like Eskay, Stylosa, and Flats are really enjoying the title, and many others who have been playing Overwatch for almost a decade are also hopping on Deadlock. Bear in mind that this transition is happening while Twitch drops are enabled for Overwatch 2, meaning OW streamers are actively losing out on a ton of viewership and money to go play Deadlock instead.

Not to mention, Deadlock added a streamer mode in the first major public patch. It took Overwatch several years and an entire sequel to give something similar to their content creators. Clearly, Valve have their priorities straight.

Valve

Flats in particular has been vocal about his disdain for Overwatch despite owing his career to the game. He ripped into its current state in the minutes after he interviewed Game Director Aaron Keller and Lead Gameplay Designer Alec Dawson.

“[Overwatch] is a great casual game, f*cking boring as sh*t nowadays. I’m so f**king bored of Overwatch. I have literally negative desire to play the game, especially playing tank dude. I used to love playing tank, I could play it all day long. I don’t give a f*ck anymore. I don’t even care. I don’t even talk about balance stuff that often anymore, because I couldn’t give a sh*t less.”

Flats also claimed that plenty of other Overwatch creators feel the same way, and that the game will get left behind for something shiny and new at some point if they don’t innovate.

Deadlock is objectively in an exciting stage. Experiencing the early Alpha is a treat if you don’t mind the constant change, with the devs deciding to just add wall jumping out of nowhere on a random patch alongside hundreds of balance changes and a huge map update. They’re constantly innovating upon the game and adding new things, proving Flats right… In some ways.

Is Deadlock going to kill Overwatch 2?

The short answer here is no, Deadlock probably won’t kill Overwatch 2. The long answer is a bit more complicated.

Put simply, there is no game that’ll ever “kill” Overwatch. Its characters are an iconic part of gaming at this point, and people will always have affection for the franchise as long as it’s around. The core, competitive audience is what Deadlock has the biggest chance of taking away, but it can still survive as a casual game with characters people have a deep attachment to.

Blizzard

Not everyone loves Deadlock. While many content creators are on board, others like Summit have claimed that Valve’s new MOBA is outright worse than Overwatch. More casual creators like Linus Tech Tips don’t see themselves playing the game long-term due to how mechanically dense it is. There’s still a casual audience to capture.

However, Overwatch is now lacking all the things that make their game fun and exciting for broader audiences. The lore team has been laid off. Cinematics have been downscaled. Unlike League of Legends, they don’t have a TV series or spinoff games in progress that keep the franchise relevant despite OW having more than enough of a following to warrant an animated series.

This, combined with single-player’s cancellation and a lack of exciting new features to spice up its multiplayer experience, makes it hard to keep Overwatch fresh and exciting for casual players. The competitive player base leaving isn’t what’ll kill the game – it’s the casual players moving on to the next big thing and leaving Overwatch in their memories as something they used to enjoy.

Considering it has the potential to stand out from every other game in terms of brand recognition, the only way Overwatch 2 truly dies is a slow death by 1,000 cuts, with many of those wounds being self-inflicted.

For Deadlock, though? It’s open season. Overwatch’s competitive scene is already on life support as it is, and players are looking for something new. In a lot of ways, Deadlock is that something new, supported by a developer with a history of excellence in esports. It’d be no surprise to see Overwatch get relegated to that game you play with your friends every once in a while as Valve’s new hero shooter/MOBA hybrid takes over the world.