It’s only been a week since Valve officially acknowledged Deadlock’s existence, and gaming’s least-closed beta test is already changing quite a bit. Yesterday, Deadlock got a hefty patch that added wall-jumping and more than a hundred hero balance tweaks, because the third person MOBA shooter wasn’t already complicated enough without elaborate parkour. Also included in the patch is a new profile screen, showing statistics from a player’s playtime with different heroes, which—as some eagle-eyed Deadlock enthusiasts noticed—included three heroes that we can’t yet select in-game: Holliday, Mirage, and Wrecker.
A hotfix arrived shortly afterwards that removed the unimplemented heroes from the profile statistics page, but players snagged some screenshots as proof. Better still, while those heroes might not be visible in in-game menus, it’s possible to try them out in Deadlock’s sandbox mode using a few console commands. It seems safe to assume these three will join the existing roster of 21 at some later point.
After pulling up Deadlock’s console (bound to F7 by default), entering the command “dump_hero_names” will return a list of all heroes that are at least partially implemented, including the unfinished heroes that were briefly glimpsed through the new profile screen. While in the hero Sandbox, entering “selecthero hero_[name]” will switch your character to the specified hero, even if they can’t normally be selected. With those console commands, you can get some early practice with Mirage, Wrecker, and Holliday. You’ll have to use the name “Astro” for Holliday, though.
As you can see in these clips from @IntelDeadlock on X, Mirage looks like they’ll have a desert-themed ability kit, letting them launch tornadoes to toss enemies into the air, fire beetles that’ll slow enemies in a location, and shoot off a projectile that’ll tether an enemy player to other players nearby.
🔴UPCOMING NEW HERO – “MIRAGE” – Ability 1: Send out a tornado that knocks up and damages enemies -Ability 2: Launch beetles at a location, slowing and dealing damage-Ability 3: Gain bullet evasion and movespeed-Ability 4: Projectile that roots the first enemy and tethers… pic.twitter.com/cUpUQq3q7MAugust 27, 2024
Wrecker’s model, meanwhile, is clearly in a less-finished state, meaning it might be a bit longer before we can actually select them in-game. Wrecker’s got a suite of scrap-related abilities, like throwing balls of junk to stun enemies, gaining buffs by stunning and killing enemy troops, and launching an exploding specter that’ll warp Wrecker to the point of impact.
🔴UPCOMING NEW HERO – “WRECKER”- Ability 1: Throw a large ball of scrap that damages and stuns -Ability 2: Stun an enemy troop, damaging them and buffing you on successful kills -Ability 3: Damage and Slow enemies in front of you-Ability 4: Launch and control a copy of… pic.twitter.com/PkJ7H81jPfAugust 28, 2024
While Holliday isn’t listed in the dump_hero_names list, picking a hero named “Astro” with the selecthero command will switch you to a character that looks identical to the model shown in the Holliday screenshot linked above. Presumably, Astro was her name during an earlier phase of development. She’s very cowboyish, and can roll shootable powderkegs, toss down bounce pads, throw her hat to make enemies visible through walls (it’s magic, probably), and drag enemies with a “spirit lasso.”
🔴UPCOMING NEW HERO – ASTRO – Ability 1: Place a barrel that explodes when shot, or can be launched -Ability 2: Drop a bounce pad, dealing damage when you land -Ability 3: Throw your hat to strike enemies, slowing and revealing -Ability 4: Lasso and drag an enemy behind you pic.twitter.com/NW6xRAVlKGAugust 26, 2024
Of course, because these are all unimplemented heroes, none of their artwork or abilities should be considered anything close to final until they’re fully playable in-game. And because Deadlock is still in early development, despite the tens of thousands of people playing it, it’s safe to assume that they’ll be changing a lot after they’re fully playable, too.
