Gameplay

11 Deadlock pages in Gameplay.

• Ability Points and LevelingIn Deadlock your soul total is your level: at set soul counts you unlock your four abilities (at 0, 500, 1,400 and 3,200 souls above the start) or earn an Ability Point, 32 in all by 48,600, exactly enough for every upgrade at 1, 2 and 5 points each.
• Game ModesDeadlock has three matchmaking modes on Oct 26, 2026 (Standard, Ranked and the 4v4 Street Brawl) plus bot matches, Custom Matches, Explore NYC, the Sandbox and the Hideout for practice. Hero Labs, an experimental mode for unfinished heroes, has been paused since Aug 2025.
• Map and LanesDeadlock's map is one occult New York with three lanes since Feb 25, 2025: York (yellow), Broadway (blue, the middle) and Greenwich (green), with four Districts between them since City Never Sleeps (Theater, Chinatown, Haunted Lot and Plaza) and a base at each end.
• Mid-Boss and RejuvenatorDeadlock's Mid-Boss sits in the Pit at the center of the map from the first second of a match, with 13,000 base health; the team that kills it gets 3,000 souls, 2 permanent buffs each and a Rejuvenator crystal whose buff lasts 3 minutes, and it respawns 7 minutes later.
• Movement and CombatDeadlock heroes move with stamina-based dashes and air jumps, free slides, wall jumps, mantles and out-of-combat sprint, and fight with guns, abilities, light and heavy melee and a parry that stuns an attacking meleer. Most heroes have 3 stamina, a ground dash covers 10 meters and a dash jump 19, and headshots deal 1.65 times damage (Valve's notes and the game files, as of Oct 26, 2026).
• Neutral Camps and JungleDeadlock's jungle is the neutral camps between the lanes, called Haunts since City Never Sleeps (Sep 29, 2026): weak camps first spawn at 2:00, medium at 5:00 and strong at 8:00, alongside crates, Buff Containers and Sinner's Sacrifice soul vaults.
• ObjectivesYou win a Deadlock match by destroying the enemy Patron in its base. To reach it, a team breaks a lane's Guardian, Walker and pair of Base Guardians, then two Shrines, and each enemy Walker it kills unlocks a Flex Slot for every player.
• Ranked and MatchmakingDeadlock's Ranked Mode, added on Jul 30, 2026, has 11 ranks from Initiate to Eternus (plus the uncalibrated Obscurus), each with six subranks. To queue you need 60 Standard wins and at least 3 heroes with 15 Standard wins each; Season 1 ends Nov 5, 2026.
• Soul UrnDeadlock's Soul Urn spawns at 10 minutes and every 5 minutes after at one end of the map; a hero picks it up with a melee hit and carries it to the drop-off at the opposite end for 250 souls plus 70 per minute of match time and 4 permanent buffs (rules since Jun 30, 2026).
• Souls and EconomySouls are Deadlock's only currency and its experience: they buy items and level your hero. Most come from lane troopers and their orbs, then hero kills, Haunts, objectives and breakables, and a losing team earns up to 25% more.
• Street BrawlStreet Brawl is Deadlock's 4v4 best-of-five mode, added on Jan 22, 2026: one lane, rounds of a few minutes, no farming, and three items drafted from a random set each round. The first team to win three rounds wins the match.

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