Slork
Deadlock players have discovered an in-progress new hero named Slork, who looks like a half-man, half-shark—or possibly just a guy wearing a weird skeletal shark costume.
The Deadlock Intel Twitter feed described Slork as "super unfinished," but provided a rundown of his abilities as they currently stand. Riptide bounces enemies up into the air with the bonus of ricocheting off walls for more mayhem. Deep's Embrace appears to be a sort of watery shield, and Ambush Predator makes you Slork briefly invisible and faster for a few seconds before ending with an attack. Chomp is pretty much self-explanatory.
????SUPER UNFINISHED SHARK HERO "SLORK"-Ability 1: "Riptide" - Sends out a wave that knocks up enemies and bounces off of walls-Ability 2: "Chomp" - Jumps and grabs onto an enemy, chomping them-Ability 3: "Deep's Embrace" - Looks like it encases yourself in water, assuming it… pic.twitter.com/5jrtHsLOp4September 5, 2024
You can get a slightly more descriptive look at the character in action—again, in a very unfinished state—in this Mon Facts video from YouTube.
Some observant followers also noticed Slork's physical similarity to Slark, a Dota 2 character with a similarly stealth-focused approach to gameplay. Redditor tgiyb1 said on the Deadlock subreddit that Slork "pretty much seems to be Slark from Dota but with permanent invisibility tied to his ult (he also gets huge passive hp regen while invis similar to Slark's ult)." Given that, and the name, I wouldn't be surprised to see some connective tissue between the two in the Deadlock lore, assuming Slork ends up a completed and released character—never a sure thing when it comes to Valve.
While we clearly don't know much about Slork at this point, he has inspired considerable conversation here in the hallowed halls of PC Gamer:
It went on like that for awhile.
I mean a long while.
We have no idea when Slork might make an official appearance in Deadlock, but until then you can access Slork yourself by pressing F7 in sandbox mode to access the command console, then entering "selecthero hero_slork," without the quotes. May Slork watch over you all.
Slork.