Deadlock recently put out a new update, completely overhauling the map and the lore, refining its two opposing factions, the Hidden King and the Arch Mother. The amount of effort Valve has put into crafting the lore and the world of Deadlock got me thinking: Is all of this amazing lore really just for a MOBA?
League of Legends, a game I’ve spent ungodly hours on, began as “just a MOBA,” too. It was built on what DOTA was in Warcraft 3 and had lore just serviceable enough to explain who these new heroes and characters are (much like the heroes of old DOTA did). Eventually, as League grew, so did the lore evolve, with Riot overhauling it completely and crafting one of the most interesting science-fantasy worlds ever put to paper.
Of course, Riot put huge emphasis on cinematics, improving them and upping the ante every single year, until they’d started amassing hundreds of millions of views on account of their aesthetics, lore, and, of course, music.
The lore has almost outgrown League itself, as so many people now know Jinx and Vi and Caitlyn from Arcane, even though few of them have taken them for a spin on the bot lane or in the jungle.
Deadlock is a bit of a different case. Whereas League started off with barely usable, utilitarian stories, Deadlock is being shaped as a narrative-driven experience, even though it’s a MOBA like any other.
Sure, there’s a need to revolutionize genres that Vale is known for, and since it’s a third-person game, the environment does play a major role, but the lore and the stories are so extensive and so well-made that it’d be a crying shame if it all just remained contained within the game’s rather limited experience.
Every aspect of every bit of that game is evocative, speaking of above- and underground cultures, demons, gods, and voodoo practitioners, a New York far removed from the one we know. It’s a place I’d love to live in, a location worthy of exploring.
While I’d love to have a single-player game set within this mystical and otherworldly alternate 1920s, a TV show or anime or anything that’d let us look at Deadlock‘s setting from another angle would work just as well.
Valve is probably planning to finally have an IP of its own that it can branch out into the mainstream with, captivating those audiences that have long slept on its live-service, multiplayer-oriented games. Dota 2‘s anime was cool and all, but it wasn’t as polished or as thoughtfully crafted as Deadlock is. This new game is being set up for multimedia greatness that could eclipse Riot’s titan, but Valve’s track record doesn’t really inspire confidence.
I hope to see Deadlock evolve over the coming years into a gigantic world and story that we can experience in more ways than one. Narratives and environments like these don’t deserve to be locked to MOBAs, and the fact that Riot hasn’t yet put out that MMO hurts me in ways you wouldn’t believe.
Valve, please fix.
