Former Overwatch pro xQc had a number of interesting reactions to Valve's new hero shooter Deadlock, going from calling the game “garbage” to describing it as “the future of gaming.”
In a clip from his stream (via Deadlock Intel), xQC, who played on the Overwatch League’s Dallas Fuel team and also represented Canada at the game’s World Cup, is having a very bad match. With his team down over 40,000 souls (Deadlock’s combined currency and XP tracker), the streamer finds himself taking a lot of damage from his opponent and offering almost nothing in return.
“The game is shit,” xQc complains after an enemy player nearly killed him in one hit, despite his teammate telling him that they enjoyed the game more as they learned to play it better. However, it seems that shortly after, the streamer changed his mind in a rather significant way.
“This game is actually the future of gaming” xQc's NEW THOWS on Deadlock pic.twitter.com/tXf6rVjnRsSeptember 9, 2024
As a veteran League of Legends player, I can understand what's happened here. There aren't many game genres where you can go hungry as much as you can in a MOBA. If you fall too far behind, it often feels like you can't do anything but wait for your opponents to make a potential mistake. In xQc's defense, those are the LoL games I complain the most about never playing again, but there's no one to hold me to those claims when I inevitably come back to playing a few minutes later.
Sentiment around Deadlock seems to be fairly positive in the esports community: in August, former FPS pro Shroud said the game was “going to be a big takeover” for me, while several players say they’re planning to leave content creation slots for their current games in order to pursue Deadlock. However, with Valve’s reputation for shooters and experience with esports, that might not come as much of a surprise.
As Deadlock cheating makes a comeback, Valve says: yeah, maybe anti-cheating in its new hero shooter is a good idea.