r/DeadlockTheGame • u/Axis251 • Feb 24 '26

Discussion A tweet that has me thinking.

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I don’t know if Riot can copy what valve has created with Deadlock. The atmosphere and setting so what I think makes deadlock so enjoyable. Yes the gameplay is amazing and the moba aspects are great but I just don’t think riot will even try to copy valve and make a deadlock clone. What is all y’all’s thoughts.

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u/Pollenus Feb 24 '26

2weeko

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u/UrsaMajor920 Feb 24 '26

Lol I actually enjoy 2XKO but this is pretty funny.

It's a shame because the core game is quite solid, the handshake tag system is very freeform, allows for a lot of cool combos and nasty setups. But the monetization decisions and low morale from the devs within a month of release is foreboding.

Not sure what went wrong, 10 years of dev time and we don't have much to show for it. Seems like the execs were really expecting it to do LoL/Valorant numbers

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u/just_Okapi Dynamo Feb 24 '26

It was never going to do the numbers they wanted, no matter how good the game was. Simple fact of the matter is, 2D tag fighters are a niche of an already niche genre. Street Fighter 6 is easily the biggest of the current fighting game releases, and it pulls 36k players concurrent on a good day on Steam. The playerbase for competitive fighting games just isn't nearly as big as MOBAs or FPSes.

On top of that, fighting game fans don't tend to whale out over skins and stuff like MOBA and FPS players tend to, for a myriad of reasons that ultimately boil down to "it's not the culture". Giving the FGC a free to play fighting game should have been a nonstarter from the start if their goal was to break into that demographic (it was).

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u/doubleaxle Pocket Feb 25 '26

As a person who plays fighting games, in a few different styles (Smash, BB, GG, Brawlhalla), I have no interest in tag fighters, and the only one off the top of my head that's been popular and meaningfully successful is DBF-Z, even though so many games are made in the style. Like if they made it a normal fighting game I think it would do far better.