hi
If you’ve missed it, we recently pushed out an update to fix some of the more disruptive issues that had been in the game for a while, you can check out the changelog here.
DEADBOLT is 10 years old as of when this is posted! Crazy how time flies. Ten years of shooting undead, obsessing over scraps of lore, proving your level design and artistic chops through many (MANY!) creative works, and drawing lines on the DEADBOLT 2 conspiracy board (it’s not a delusion if I’m right!). Alongside the patch, we’ve decided to celebrate with another community highlight.
While there is an extensive history of community efforts throughout the game’s lifespan, documenting all of that would require basically infinite space, which isn’t a luxury we can afford. As a compromise, we’ve decided to limit ourselves to everything particularly cool since the last community highlight, i.e. three years ag— what do you mean three—
ARTWORKS (AND ADJACENT COOL THINGS)
These past few years, there’s been a trend of putting the game’s beloved characters into other mediums and media — this rather curiously coincides with Hopoo Games’ departure to work on Deadlock, which could not escape said trend, though not without precedent.
@reikachang drew a stunning rendition of Ibzan as part of the game’s roster:
And Artidery, in collaboration with Red Cloud, actually put Reaper and (technically) Ibzan into the game, as a replacement for Mirage. Complete with custom sound effects and everything!
Unfortunately, at the time of writing, game updates have broken the custom model’s rigging, but it’s too cool a concept not to share.
Since the start of 2025, Expend4bles together with his team have made some great efforts in making a fully custom Risk of Rain 2 character out of Reaper. An ambitious endeavour, but one with great promise. Here are a couple WIP screenshots:
PodcoTima and friends have made a fair few physical items, though I particularly fancy this shirt:
And, of course, there’s an insurmountable amount of good old artworks by our talented members of the community.
My personal (and extremely biased) shoutout goes to @brainheadbot for his strong linework and expressive use of contrast:
As well as KL (@klthatsit), the resident pixel boltposter, who even made an artwork for today’s occasion:
We’ve also decided to feature the following:
"Another day at purgatory" by @SoGeerld
Reaper's apartment, drawn in acrylic by Твоя Майя
Holiday festivities by Настинский
"The walking one" by BlooodySpy, taken out of a set of 38 artworks, each depicting a different reaper.
Reaper in a spotlight by 8ughead
Reaper being moody by VentA M. Kutay
"Another night" by TAMA
Ashes to Ashes by Seru
Awesome cosplay by Mr. Funkybones
Though, of course, there is no shortage of great artworks that we could keep featuring (and it is hard to play favourites). If you're hungry for more, pay a visit over to the #creative-db and #creative-archive channels over on the community server.
Lastly, I’ll take this opportunity to shill a creation of my own, that being the enemy and weapon randomiser. If you’ve ever wanted to spike up the difficulty, or make the game utterly ridiculous, look no further. I could tell you all about what it does, but a single screenshot is worth a thousand words:
WORKSHOP
The custom map scene is still alive and well, with faces both familiar and new. Let’s look at a few that would have probably been guaranteed MotWs.
First on the agenda is the “TERMINATION” campaign by the already-mentioned brainheadbot. This campaign pushes the editor’s limitations to the fullest by featuring complex cinematics in between challenging encounters with a heavy emphasis on stealth, set in elaborately-decorated environments. If there’s any reason to play this campaign, it’s to admire the sheer wizardry accomplished with the level editor’s trigger system.
Of particular note, however, is also the fact that brainheadbot actually went the extra mile to make a “physical copy” of the level, just as a side project. Now that’s commitment.
jelliwren’s “TURNCOAT” features many of the same qualities (sans the box), but with an urban twist and a more puzzle-focused gameplay, at least to begin with. Both are story-heavy campaigns that do a great job showcasing what can be done with the editor, and both are well worth your time.
And speaking of flexing with the editor’s trigger system, Mr. V, a newcomer to the scene, has three great maps: DOWNFALL, A.S.H. Inc. and STIFF RIVER. Don’t want to spoil the surprise with these (you'll see as soon as you start playing), but the maps share notable variety in both enemies and routes.
Classic_Cheese18, a long-standing member of the community, has been killing it lately with his [WORD] series — a gameplay-focused collection with the central premise that every level is the size of the game’s window. No camera movement allowed, with the spatial constraints proving perfect both to express the mapper’s creativity and test the player’s wits.
Here’s a really funny one for you – Dogs and Techies by Tahazzar. It’s exactly what it says on the tin. There are dogs, and there are techies. Everyone’s favourite enemy types! Not getting mauled or exploded requires a lot of forethought and, sometimes, recklessness. Good luck!
And lastly, what we’re featuring isn’t a map, but rather a blog about making a map. Garth-Mod decided to challenge themself by making three different maps, only spending a couple of hours on each, and then documented the experience over on the “What’s Behind The Waterfall” blog. It’s a unique opportunity to delve into the process behind a level’s design, rather than just focusing on the end result, and I personally found it to be an interesting read. The maps are also all available on the workshop (here, here and here), if you fancy trying them out!
AUDIOVISUAL TREATS
Before we wrap up, there are also a lot of video links that I really want to share.
For the musically inclined, plenty DEADBOLT-inspired compositions, covers and original, have been released over the last few years. These include:
ApaoloMusic collection:
If you fancy something with more visual content, though, we gotchu:
“Two Pairs”, a slick action animation:
View game pageRe-experience the pains of the 100% achievement grind with Nick AR (almost a million views, holy moly!)
View game pageFollow along with Shoestring, beating the game without any starting weapons:
View game pageCozy up in Fox.8830’s Minecraft recreation of Reaper’s apartment:
View game pageAnd lastly, check out KH’s parody of “Firearms Expert Reacts”. This is peak boltposting.
And if you’re wanting to sink your teeth into the game’s narrative, the following collection of videos is for you. While they largely fall within the same genre of retelling the game’s events, each brings unique discussion points and has great presentation, making them well worth the watch:
Warmth by, like, a lot of people (the animations are cool too!)
Now I Am Become Dudebolt by autumn22
Hopoo’s forgotten gem by Bizmo
Why Deadbolt Deserves a Sequel by La Rubric
Wrap-Up
That’s it for this community highlight! As always, whether you’ve been here since the release or just bought the game, thanks for sticking around. Here’s to more DEADBOLT content, wherever it may come from. If you haven’t played the game in a long while, why not give it another replay with all of the patch’s improvements? And don’t forget to check out the community Discord server, for plenty more creative works and game discussions.
…seriously though, deadbolt 2 when?