Is there something new underneath a whole bunch of familiar game elements?

"Basically, fast-paced interesting ADHD gameplay. Combination of Dota 2, Team Fortress 2, Overwatch, Valorant, Smite, Orcs Must Die."

That's how notable Valve leaker "Gabe Follower" describes Deadlock, a Valve game that is seemingly in playtesting at the moment, for which a few screenshots have leaked out.

The game has been known as "Neon Prime" and "Citadel" at prior points. It's a "Competitive third-person hero-based shooter," with six-on-six battles across a map with four "lanes." That allows for some of the "Tower defense mechanics" mentioned by Gabe Follower, along with "fast travel using floating rails, similar to Bioshock Infinite." The maps reference a "modern steampunk European city (little bit like Half-Life)," after "bad feedback" about a sci-fi theme pushed the development team toward fantasy.

    • TraumaDumpling
      ·
      1 month ago

      yea, how is Boneworks/Bonelab still the benchmark for VR gameplay. like sure the game structure and level design is basically at the level of a tech demo/tutorial, and Bonelab loading times are basically unplayable for a standing VR experience, but the gameplay (world interaction, physicality, movement, etc.) is good enough that i can't really get into other VR games without being very disappointed at the lack of arms/body/legs and physicality. Half Life Alyx sucks in comparison, i hate playing as floating hands with slow walking or teleport movement with no climbing (the jump is a teleport move). pretty much the only other VR games i like at all are vehicle sims like VTOL VR or Iron Rebellion.

      • JoeByeThen [he/him, they/them]
        ·
        1 month ago

        Ah, I'm more of an HL:Alyx person. Imo, the arms and body just don't add anything until you've got full body tracking and the whole physics based thing just doesn't make sense without force feedback. The whole power of VR is create a world that you can do things you couldn't do in reality, for me. Almost all my VR equipment I bought used except for some bhaptics stuff which performs brilliantly under Alyx. It wasn't bad in Boneworks and did add to the experience, but Alyx is so top tier in its development and story that I just don't really compare it to Boneworks.

        • TraumaDumpling
          ·
          1 month ago

          HL:A is definitely more of a 'finished game' with a complete story and more traditional level design, boneworks/lab campaigns are basically a 'find the spawnable unlock' game that also tutorializes you, expecting you to 'find your own fun' with mods and spawning things in 'sandbox' style levels. I personally never had a problem with the body tracking thing, i only have the headset and controllers and i've never really had the in game models get noticeably out of synch. the way the legs and body move according to physics/collision rules just makes sense to me even if it doesn't perfectly line up all the time. The only problem i ever have is getting motion sickness using the artificial turn controls but i have a wireless attachment for my headset so that rarely comes up. sometimes the collision and physics in boneworks/lab makes reloading guns a bit less graceful than games like Pavlov VR but the climbing and real-time jumping and sprinting and physics collisions just make me feel so much more like a part of the game world. speaking of immersion, nothing breaks it more for me than floating hands and no body/legs, especially in VR but also in traditional 2d screen games. combat in Half Life-ALyx comes across as almost a static shooting gallery, since you walk so slowly with no sprint or real-time jump and can't really leave your piece of cover in a fight without exposing yourself moving slowly through the open or teleporting and ruining immersion. I much preferred the Half Life 2 VR mods personally.

          • JoeByeThen [he/him, they/them]
            ·
            1 month ago

            I haven't gotten to HL2VR, but I hear good things. Maybe it's from growing up on Unreal Tournament's telefrag mechanic, but I'm actually a big fan of teleport locomotion; that shit's like a super power to me. I come into the battle scenes flashing all over the place like a combination of Nightcrawler and John Wick. Unfortunately, I never really get to play much nowadays.