Souls

Soul released by the trooper.

 Souls are a crucial element in Deadlock, serving both as currency and experience points (XP) for heroes. Players collect souls by various means, including shooting Soul Orbs released when certain entities die, taking Guardians/Walkers, killing enemy players, and finding Unsecured Souls in boxes or crates. Unsecured souls are added to your total immediately but can drop upon death for other players to collect.

Every player starts the game with  400.

Soul Orbs

Troopers and the Soul Urn release souls in a Soul Orb. These orbs may be attacked in melee or with guns to confirm (or deny) the souls and grant them to the attacker. If they are not attacked, then the souls will be granted to the killer automatically after around 1 seconds. Certain abilities like Serrated Knives or Malice can also confirm or deny orbs.

The soul orbs are initally dark when they spawn. They can only be shot and confirmed once they light up.

An opposing player may deny these souls by attacking the soul orb instead. These will grant the Souls to the attacker and not the original killer.

Soul orbs can be divided into "local" and "global" soul orbs:

Local

These orbs grant souls to the killer/attacker and are shared with any nearby allies. These are the most common kind of soul orb and are gained from killing Troopers and players

Global

These orbs grant souls to the entire team of the killer/attacker, often with a boost to the last-hitter. These are earned from destroying Guardians and Walkers as well as turning in the Soul Urn

Local Soul Sharing

When souls are to be shared, the game checks two distances to add allied heroes to the "pool" of heroes to split the received souls:

• 45m from the soul orb itself when it is broken
• 30m from the hero that killed the Trooper

If an allied hero is within either of these distances, souls are shared between the killer and those allied heroes.

Gathering Souls

• Teams with fewer souls will gain more souls from all sources (see Comeback Mechanics below).

Soul Distribution

• Hero kill souls are distributed between nearby players with the following rate:
  • 125%/57%/28%/17%/11%/8% (for 1/2/3/4/5/6 players)
    • EX: 1000 souls between 4 players would grant each player 210 souls (1000 * 21%)
  • Additionally, the total souls count per kill is reduced based on how many players are nearby the hero killed, with the following rate: 100%/100%/90%/85%/80%/75% (for 1/2/3/4/5/6 players)
• Trooper souls are distributed between nearby players with the following rate:
  • 100%/54%/36%/25%/20%/16% (for 1/2/3/4/5/6 players)
    • EX: 120 souls between 4 players would grant each player 18 souls (120 * 15%)
• Before the 2025-04-17 update, two players in the same lane both received 100% of souls before 8 minutes (soul duplication). Now the soul distribution is the same for the entire match, so both players get 65% per Trooper.

• When a Trooper is killed, the killer will receive 50% of the Trooper's souls at once, then the remaining 50% when the soul orb is destroyed by themselves, an ally, or it expires (multiplied by Soul distribution for all players nearby). Killing the Trooper with a melee attack grants 100% of the value on kill.

Denizens (Jungle Creeps)

• Jungle camps contain Denizens that give souls to players on kill. They do not release soul orbs.
  • In order for Denizens to give souls to both players, both players must deal damage to the Denizen.
  • Souls from Denizens are split between all allied players who dealt damage to said Denizens.
• Souls from Denizens are unsecured souls

Breakables

• Breaking the wooden crates scattered throughout the map will have a chance to spawn some souls.
  • Chance for any given crate to drop souls when broken is approximately 60%
  • Amount of souls dropped is a function of in-game time:
    • [Souls Dropped] = 23 + 2.0*[Game Time in Minutes]
    • For example: At 30:00 game time, a broken crate will drop 83 souls.

Unsecured Souls

Souls earned from killing Denizens and destroying Sinner's Sacrifice machines are unsecured. These souls will be dropped on death, allowing any player to collect the Soul Container by hitting it with a Heavy Melee. Dropped unsecured souls will despawn after 3 minutes.

Unsecured souls are converted into secured souls at a standard rate, meaning they will no longer be dropped on death.

• With fewer than 100 unsecured souls, they are converted to secured souls at a rate of 1 soul / second
• With more than 100 unsecured souls, they are converted at a rate of 1 soul / second per 100 unsecured souls
  • Example: 570 unsecured souls is converted at 5 souls / second

Souls UI for Heroes

Unsecured souls may be spent in the shop, but are spent after secured souls. They are indicated by the silver-green ball on the Hero's hip known internally as a Soul Container, as well as in the number on the HUD with a red icon.

On the character UI, the large souls number is the total number of secured and unsecured souls added together.

Leveling Up

Gathering souls will directly "level up" your hero gain skill points, Boons and other upgrades. See leveling up for more information.

Soul Values

• Soul Value: Value of the target at the time = 0m
• Soul Gain: How the value changes over the time of the match, measured in minutes

Source	Soul Value	Combined Soul Gain (/m)
Heroes	250 Total	+48.75
Trooper	120 Total	+1.2
Small Denizen	51	+0.55
Medium Denizen	84	+0.91
Large Denizen	225	+2.43
Sinner's Sacrifice	327	+3.53
Soul Urn*	700 Total	+230
Guardian**	1250	N/A
Walker**	3500	N/A
Base Guardian	1000	N/A
Shrine**	2000	N/A
Weakened Patron	0	N/A
Crates	23 Total	+2.0

* Soul gain from Urns is divided amongst the team. The Courier gets slightly more souls.

** Soul gain from structures is split with 40% given to nearby allied heroes, while 60% is divided amongst the entire team.

Comeback Mechanics

When a team is behind on souls, there are some "comeback mechanics" that come into play to allow the losing team to quickly catch up.

• Killing an enemy Hero will award more souls if your team is behind.
• Killing an enemy Hero that has a Kill Streak will reward a "Bounty" of extra souls.
• The Soul Urn will give additional souls to a team that is behind.
• The losing team gains up to 30% more souls from Troopers, Denizens, Sinner's Sacrifices and Objectives, based on how behind they are (peaks at 20% max net worth difference). The first 3k in net worth difference is ignored.

Catch up Mechanics

Catch up mechanics allow for players with low net worth to catch up to the other players on their team.

• The two players on each team with the lowest net worth have a passive gain of souls per second based on the total souls gathered by the team (2% and 1% for the lowest and second-lowest player, respectively). This occurs after laning phase (8 min).

Update history

Main article: Update historyView the full update history: Souls/Update history

Update	Changes
July 28, 2026	The Orb Spawners in base that give 10 souls on hit now split to nearby players on expire
July 9, 2026	Objectives bounty split for nearby heroes reduced from 40% to 30% (this means slightly more portion of the bounty is split team wide rather than towards an individual player)
June 30, 2026	First blood bounty reduced from 150 to 125 Base kill bounty reduced from 250 to 200 (max is still 2200 at 40m) Trooper bounty ratio in the deniable flying orb increased from 40% to 50% Minimum unsecured souls allowed to drop reduced from 150 to 50 + 5/min