Valve developer shares video of an even earlier version of Deadlock, in which the player battles Half-Life 2 enemies with Left 4 Dead weapons

Last Friday, Valve formally announced Deadlock, its new multiplayer shooter that blends third-person action with a MOBA structure. Deadlock's road to its official reveal has been highly unusual, with Valve pretending the game didn't exist for several months, all while inviting thousands of people to play it.

Indeed, even now Valve has acknowledged the cat's escape from the bag, the weirdness hasn't stopped. Deadlock's Steam page remains intensely cryptic, despite the Internet being flooded with videos of the game in action. Moreover, in a move normally reserved for a decade or two after a game launches, one of Valve's developers has revealed a super early prototype of Deadlock in action.

The video of this prototype was noticed by online Valve bloodhound Gabe Follower, who posted the video on their Twitter account, stating «Valve dev 'Yoshi' shared early footage of gameplay prototype for Deadlock.» The video, which you can view below, shows the player walking through a blocky environment accompanied by a squad of antlions – the giant insects that hunt by smell from Half-Life 2. Moving forward, the player is accosted by an enemy group of antlions, and proceeds to shoot a few of them before his own insectoid pals catch up and take over combat duties.

Valve dev «Yoshi» shared early footage of gameplay prototype for Deadlock. Placeholder assets from Left 4 Dead, Dota and Half-Life… pic.twitter.com/fmKfl7d1KAValve dev «Yoshi» shared early footage of gameplay prototype for Deadlock. Placeholder assets from Left 4 Dead, Dota and Half-Life… pic.twitter.com/fmKfl7d1KAAugust 26, 2024August 26, 2024

Aside from its curiosity value, the video is a neat glimpse into the game development process. Despite clearly being at a very early stage, you can see the basic shape of what Deadlock is now, with players accompanied through the map by their own set of AI minions. It's also interesting to see that the antlions are a different colour than they are in Half-Life 2 (grey versus