Valve’s third-person shooting MOBA Deadlock has become incredibly popular online lately, and not for the reasons you might think. The game’s unique setting of a highly haunted 1930’s New York is full of characters who are just as interesting, and with every update bringing new characters, the game’s roster is constantly evolving with some of the most creative heroes you can find in gaming right now. From a park bench bound, pigeon-feeding take on Baba Yaga to a sentient, crime-fighting Gargoyle, Deadlock’s character designers continue to impress fans beyond the audience that actually plays the game.
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The creative approach to character design in Deadlock even extends to one of the game’s two resident vampires, whose entire existence is a slap in the face to traditional vampire tropes and media. This character’s unique approach to everyone’s favorite blood-sucking nightmares just might be one of the best takes on vampires in gaming, if not in all of fiction.
The Vampires We All Know
Since the very first iteration of the vampire born from Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the collective consciousness has had an image of vampires as being high-born socialites in incredibly expensive and often times elaborate gothic formalwear.
Perhaps there is something about old aristocrats living in their castles or manors far away from regular society that makes us imagine them as inhuman creatures of the night, or maybe it is the juxtaposition between the high and mighty, well-dressed socialites giving in to a monstrous and messy appetite for blood that simply captures our imagination, but there has been very little done to deviate away from these formulaic depictions. When Twilight came along and changed the popular consensus on vampires, all it did was make them brooding and sexy, something that Netflix’s upcoming remake likely won’t change.
Suffice to say, when you imagine a vampire, there is a pretty familiar image that probably comes to your head, and it’s somewhere between Castlevania’s Alucard and True Blood’s Eric Northman. Clean, well-off, with an air of superiority to match a vaguely dangerous, yet intriguing aura. It is a timeless characterization, but if we’re being honest, sometimes timeless tropes can get boring. Deadlock challenges this tired depiction with the Drifter, an absolutely horrifying vampire who is everything the vampire you imagined is not.
The Antithesis Of The Vampire Trope
Deadlock’s Drifter isn’t a well-dressed aristocrat who has been living in an ancient castle for hundreds of years, feasting on the same local village under his charge. He’s also not a sexy bad boy who assimilates into the night life of a modern day city, feasting on the blood of unsuspecting lovers or drunks in an alleyway. He is a nightmare the subverts every vampiric expectation.
He isn’t clean; he’s noticeably dirty, wearing torn and blood stained clothing barely held together. He doesn’t doesn’t live in some castle far away from civilization, he roams the country and feasts on unsuspecting prey where he finds them. He isn’t part of some high society of vampiric elites, he’s a vagrant who cares about nothing but killing and feasting on blood, overwhelmed completely by the savage, monstrous instincts that usually act as a contrast to your typical vampire’s noble demeanor.
Drifter is not only interesting for subverting all of the vampiric tropes, but he’s also terrifying because he isn’t held accountable to their rules. There is no high society ego to play, as he is very fine being in the mud and blood. There’s no spooky castle to avoid an invitation to, because he can show up anywhere at any time. There is no romance to his mystery, as he is devoted completely to the dark hunger that plagues his kind and wants nothing more than to tear you apart with his bare hands, something that his blood-stained wrists suggest he gets up to often.
Ditching the high-society vampire for what is essentially a borderline feral serial killer is one of the most incredible takes on a vampire currently in fiction. It removes the romance behind the idea of vampirism, taking an idea that few people in the modern day find frightening and returning its edge. Unlike most other vampires, nobody wants to be or be with Drifter. He is a boogeyman, something as terrifying as the most gruesome urban legends and all born from a brilliant subversion on a popular character archetype.
Deadlock Masters Both Sides Of The Vampiric Spectrum
As brilliant as Drifter is, the tropes he subverts are popular for a reason. Deadlock knows this, and fully embraces them with their other vampire, Mina Ha.
Mina Ha is closer to what you would expect from a vampire. She’s rich, unapologetically snobby and part of an elite vampiric society ruling from the shadows. She exists to subvert Drifter’s subversion, showing that Deadlock has space for both traditional and untraditional depictions of vampires.
That being said, Mina still adds a bit of unique flair to the vampiric world by being a fashion designer. Her fashion-focused socialite life is atypical for most vampire characters, but still makes perfect sense for a traditional vampire like herself. She depicts a more setting-appropriate idea of an aristocratic bloodsucker: one that is deeply ingrained in the high life of a near New York city, living in a luxurious high rise rather than a castle up on a hill.
Whether you prefer the traditional idea of a vampire or Drifter’s subversion, Deadlock once again shows its mastery of world and character building by delivering both. Other games need to learn from Valve’s mastery of their setting, because players deserve more creativity in their games.
Are you big fan of Drifter, or more of a Mina stan? Share your answer in the comments below.
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