Valve’s hero shooter Deadlock is still in a closed, invite-only development phase. You cannot just download and jump in. Access is limited to players who receive an invite from existing playtesters, but that has not stopped the game from building a dedicated community around builds, match data, and hero theorycrafting.
That community energy is exactly what led to Lockle, a daily guessing game built around Deadlock’s item builds. It turns real match data into a Wordle-style puzzle where you try to identify a hero based on what they bought during a live game. The idea is simple on the surface, but it gets surprisingly tricky once you are staring at a full build with no hero name attached.
What is Lockle?
Lockle is a daily browser-based guessing game for Deadlock where you try to figure out which hero a player used based on their item purchases. Instead of guessing letters like in Wordle, you are working with item builds taken from real high-elo matches. Each set of items belongs to a specific hero, and your job is to connect the build to the correct character.
The game was created about seven months ago by a Deadlock fan known on Reddit as Excellent_Bill_9528. It was first shared on the official Deadlock subreddit at launch, where it quickly picked up attention from players interested in the game’s evolving meta.
How Lockle Works
Each puzzle in Lockle is built around real match data pulled from high-level Deadlock games. You are shown a sequence of items purchased by a player at specific points in a match. These are not random builds. They come from actual gameplay, which makes the challenge more grounded in how heroes are really played.
A single puzzle is split into up to four rounds. Each round reveals more information to help narrow things down. Early rounds usually give a partial item list. Later rounds add more detail, such as total souls earned during the match or timestamps showing when items were bought. The deeper you go, the more obvious the hero becomes, but your score depends on how quickly you solve it.
You also get a limited number of guesses per round. Correct answers in earlier rounds give you a higher score, while waiting for later clues makes the puzzle easier but less rewarding. Once you solve the puzzle, the game links you to the actual match through Statlocker, so you can review the build in full and see how it was played in context.
How to Play Lockle
Playing Lockle does not require anything beyond a browser. You simply head to lockle.app and choose a mode. There are currently two main options:
- Eternus Mode: Guess the hero based on items from Eternus match builds
- All Ranks Mode: Guess the hero using Emissary match item builds
After selecting a mode, you are dropped into the daily puzzle. You will see a set of items from a real match and start making guesses based on hero knowledge, item synergy, and familiarity with how different characters build in Deadlock.
The key is learning item patterns. Some heroes lean heavily into ability power, others build around mobility or survivability, and certain item combinations quickly point toward a small pool of possible characters. Over time, you start recognizing builds instead of just reading them.
Conclusion
Since Lockle gained attention, it has also inspired similar community projects. Other fan-made guessing games like Deadlockle and Deadlockdle have appeared, each putting a slightly different spin on the same idea of identifying heroes through builds.
What started as a simple Wordle-style experiment has grown into a small corner of Deadlock culture, where item knowledge matters just as much as mechanical skill.
