Summary
If you’ve been followingValveleaks at all over the past few years, you’ll know the story ofDeadlock. For the unaware, it first leaked under the name Citadel, a clear reference to the towering Combine structure inHalf-Life 2. It then changed to Neon Prime and later Shadowline before becoming the Deadlock we know, dropping its ties to the Half-Life andPortaluniverse completely.
According toValve leaker Gabe Follower(and as reported byDot Esports), the game would’ve been set during the Seven Hour War in which the “Combine fought against the rebels of the streets of City 17.” While not clear cut evidence, much of the architecture in the Deadlock you can play right now looks strikingly like that of City 17, so it certainly lines up.
What Is The Seven Hour War?
If you need to brush up on your Half-Life lore, here’s a quick recap; the Black Mesa Incident in the first game opened a dimensional rift that allowed aliens from the borderworld Xen, led by the Nihilanth, toinvadethe facility. While Gordon Freeman was in stasis, an interdimensional empire known as the Combine learned of Earth through that same rift.
While they have the ability to leap across and through entire universes, they can’t teleport within a local region, whereastwodifferent companies on Earth (Aperture Science and the afformentioned Black Mesa) figured out how to. So, the Combine launched a full scale invasion to learn humanity’s secrets of portals and teleportation, winning a war against all of mankind in just seven hours.
The Combine who launched the Seven Hour War look nothing like the Combine in the games, since they left after converting select humans into mindless slaves who keep the rest of the population in check.
Deadlock would have allegedly taken place during this war, using the conflict as a backdrop for its MOBA-style gameplay. However, I doubt it would’ve been fought by rebels in City 17 since neither existed yet. The Seven Hour War was fought with the last bastions of the planet’s military, and City 17 wouldn’t have been called that until after the war.
Instead, we likely would’ve been fighting as a collapsing army in the Eastern European metropolis thatbecameCity 17 against these alien invaders.
Deadlock Wasn’t The Only Valve Game Set In The Seven Hour War
After the release ofHalf-Life: Alyx, Valve finally shed light onseveral Half-Life gamesthat were cancelled in the years since Episode 2. One of which was called Borealis, a VR game penned by former lead writer Marc Laidlaw which would have seen us on the namesake interdimensional ship jumping between the Seven Hour War and a period of time just after Episode 2.
Deadlock developers shared someearly footageof the game on Discord last week, revealing a mashup of Valve assets, most of which were ripped from Half-Life.
Leaker Tyler McVicker also claimed in 2015 that Valve was working on an open-world Half-Life 3 game in which Gordon Freeman would have experienced dream sequences of the Seven Hour War before waking up in Aperture Science. Clearly, Valve is intent on finding a way to tell this part of Half-Life’s story.
Either way, Deadlock is no longer a Half-Life game, but that doesn’t mean Valve is done with the series—there are leaks of a new Half-Life 3and rumours of a spin-off launching alongside the new Deckard VR headset. Let’s just hope they actually come out this time.
Deadlock
WHERE TO PLAY
Deadlock is an upcoming game from Valve which seemingly combines elements of the MOBA and hero shooter genres. As it is still in early development, gameplay and assets may be incomplete. Access is granted via friend invites.
