The Cursed Apple

“

Welcome to New York! Need a gun?

— The Shopkeeper

The Cursed Apple or "The Map" is the default location where matches take place in Deadlock. It is a small segment of the game's version of Midtown and Lower Manhattan in New York City, in which the Heroes fight to complete The Ritual and summon their respective Patron. Players can navigate with a Minimap.

The current map is called dl_midtown. Previous versions of the map were called street_test and dl_streets.

Overview

A Juke Room, with a shadow figure in its doorway.

Layout

The map is divided into three distinct lanes: York (Yellow Lane), Broadway (Blue Lane) and Park (Green Lane), also referred to as Greenwich. Outside of these lanes are a series of tunnels, alleyways, and buildings that sometimes contain Golden Statues, crates, and Neutrals. In each lane, a Zipline extends from both bases directly overhead with each having the color of the corresponding lane. The Hidden King's side of the map has mostly worn down red brick buildings, while the Archmother's side has mostly upper class white brick buildings.

Throughout the map, players can find destructible Boxes and Golden Statues. Boxes have a 60% chance to drop souls upon being destroyed, and Golden Statues have a 50% chance to drop permanent stat bonuses, such as Spirit Power or Weapon Damage. They spawn 3 minutes into the game (except mid-boxes, see Map Timings and Events : 10min) and will respawn 3 minutes after being destroyed.

Outside of the lanes is an area of the map called the jungle, which is home to the Neutral camps. Neutrals are alien-like entities that appear in groups and will attack when provoked. They come in three different sizes: small, medium and large, and drop more souls the larger they are. Being neutral units, both teams can attack the same neutral camps, and they will be aggressive to their attackers no matter which team they are on.

Respawn Room

At the rear of each team's base sits the Respawn Room, where heroes respawn after being killed. It also houses the team's Curiosity Shop and a Soul Well, which activates 3 minutes into the match. While inside the room, allied heroes restore 6% of their maximum health plus 60 health each second. Enemy heroes who enter are targeted by four turrets positioned around the room.

Juke Rooms

Juke Rooms are small dead-end tunnels located in specific points around the map. They are marked prominently by their shadowy figure standing in their doorways that contains a cosmic veil. Above the doorways is a red rectangular sign, and in the compartment contains candles and a small wall light. Juke Rooms - as implied by their name - are most often used to hide or corner enemies, as they have only one entrance. The doorway shadow also acts as a warning for fleeing players that they are about to walk into a dead-end.

A player, upon pinging a lane, has their hero state which lane they are headed to.

Objectives

In each lane on either team's side, there are a series of powerful defensive structures that must be destroyed in order to reach the enemy base. The first is the Guardian, followed by the Walker and finally a pair of weaker Base Guardians. In each team's base are two Shrines, which must be destroyed in order to attack the main objective: the Patron. The Patron has two phases, and will shift to the second one after the first phase has been defeated. Destroying the now weakened Patron is the condition for winning a match.

When an objective is destroyed, the bounty is split between the player who landed the killing blow and nearby allies. 30% of the bounty is split among nearby heroes, while the remaining 70% is distributed team-wide.

In the very middle of the map, in the underground sewer, is a second major objective known as the Mid-Boss. It is a large alien creature similar to the Neutrals, possessing a very large health pool, a constantly regenerating shield and a highly dangerous laser beam. After being slain, it will spawn a Rejuvenator Crystal that can be claimed by either team. The claimer's team will be bestowed with the Rejuvenation Credit buff, granting them special effects.

Player Visibility

Main article: Minimap

An important aspect of the map is spotting where enemies are located. An enemy player is visible to the team if they are either in a team player's line of sight, or shooting Troopers or Structures. A player can press Tab and middle-click the enemies' portrait to ping to their allies that said enemy is missing, which is useful if they have left their lane.

Map Icons

Special locations on the map can be identified by the following icons:

Map Icons

Icon	Location	Spawn Time	Respawn Time	Count
	Shop	-	-	10 2 in spawn (team-specific) 2 secret shops (neutral) 6 lane shops (one per lane, team-specific)
	Teleporter	-	-	4
	Stairs	-	-	6
	Mid Stairs	-	-	2
	Soul Urn	10 minutes (12.5s descent)	Every 5:00 (10, 15, 20...)	1
	Powerup	5 minutes	Every 5:00 (5, 10, 15...)	2
Respawn Time begins when Camp/Boss is cleared:
	Mid-Boss	-	7/6/5 minutes*	1
	Easy Camp	2:00 minutes	1:25 minutes	4
	Medium Camp	5:00 minutes	4:50 minutes	22
	Hard Camp	8:00 minutes	5:35 minutes	12
	Vault Camp (Sinner's Sacrifice)	8 minutes	5 minutes	12 (in 10 locations)

* Mid-Boss respawn time decreases after each death, with a minimum time of 5 minutes.

Map Timings and Events

0:00

• Mid-Boss
  • Buff Granted: 3 Rejuvenator credits for the team (1 per heavy melee). Heals the player who punches the first time to 100% health.
  • Effect: Resurrects a player who dies after 3s, consuming 1 credit.
  • Respawn Time: 7/6/5 minutes* after being defeated, decreasing with each respawn.

The map at 0 minutes.

The map at 2 minutes.

2:00

• Easy Neutral camps
  • Respawn Time: 1:25 minutes after all Neutrals in camp are defeated.
  • Count: 4

3:00

• Soul Well
  • Soul Wells located in the respawn room for each team start emitting souls.
• Crates
  • Respawn Time: 3 minutes after being broken.
  • Drops: Unsecured Souls (50-100 Souls on average, scales with game time).
  • Usage:
    • Unsecured Souls may be spent in the shop, but are spent after Secured Souls.
    • If the player dies with Unsecured Souls, they appear on the ground where they died. Picking up the Souls grants the Unsecured Souls.
    • Neutrals also drop Unsecured Souls.
• Golden Statues (Tier 1)
  • Respawn Time: 3 minutes after being broken.
  • Buffs Granted:
    • +1.5% Fire Rate
    • +3% Ammo Capacity
    • +0.5% Cooldown Reduction
    • +3% Weapon Damage
    • +15 Health
    • +2 Spirit
• Note: The boxes and statues in the room above Mid-Boss only spawn at 10:00.

The map at 5 minutes.

5:00

• Powerups
  • Spawn and Respawn: Every 5 minutes thereafter.
    • Example: If picked up at 14:55, a new powerup will appear at 15:00.
    • Note: Powerups spawn at both locations simultaneously, and their status can be checked via the mini-map icon.
• Medium Neutral Camps
  • Respawn Time: 4:50 minutes after all Neutrals in camp are defeated.
  • Count: 22

The map at 8 minutes.

8:00

• Hard Neutral Camps
  • Respawn Time: 5:35 minutes after all Neutrals in camp are defeated.
  • Count: 12
• Vault Camp (Sinner's Sacrifice machines)
  • Machine Effect: Has 500 health and can only be damaged with melee attacks. Weak melee attacks will do 50 point of damage and strong melee attacks will do 100 (Weak melee will do 100 damage for last hit). Each hit will deal 80 points of damage to the attacker, but grant some amount of Souls. Once the machine takes 400 damage, a looping timing window starts where a well timed melee attack will dispense one or more Golden Statue buffs. It will dispense one buff if killed with a light melee attack.
  • Respawn Time: 5 minutes after being defeated.
  • Count: 10 locations (some locations have 2 machines).

10:00

• Powerups

• Soul Urn
  • Descent: Begins at 10:00 lands after 12 seconds.
  • Respawn Time: Every 5 minutes after 10:00.
• Unstable Rift
  • Spawn: First Rift spawns at 11:00 ± 1 minute thus making 10:00 the earliest possible time for Rift to spawn
  • Mechanics:: Spawn as visual indicator => 40s pass => Global announcement => 20s pass => Rift contest begins.
  • Respawn Time: Every 7 ± 1 minutes after the previous Rift.
• Golden Statues Upgraded (Tier 2)
  • Buffs Granted:
    • +2% Fire Rate
    • +5% Ammo Capacity
    • +0.75% Cooldown Reduction
    • +4% Weapon Damage
    • +20 Health
    • +3 Spirit
• Mid Crates and Golden Statues (in the room above Mid-Boss)

The map at 12 minutes.

12:00

• Guardians lose their last damage resistance and at -50% become as vulnerable as they can be.

18:00

• Walkers lose their last damage resistance and at -65% become as vulnerable as they can be.

20:00

• Troopers start spawning more frequently, from every 30s to every 25s.

30:00

• Golden Statues Upgraded (Tier 3)
  • Buffs Granted:
    • +2.5% Fire Rate
    • +7% Ammo Capacity
    • +1% Cooldown Reduction
    • +6% Weapon Damage
    • +30 Health
    • +4 Spirit

35:00

• Troopers start spawning more frequently, from every 25s to every 20s.
  • They also get +50% max HP.

Territory

An important part of Deadlock is managing the clash of Troopers that occurs in each lane. Killing enemy Troopers allows allied Troopers to move further into the lane. This extends the Zipline available to the player's team on that lane. The Ziplines on the map will show how far a lane is "pushed" towards the enemy base, how far the Zipline can take the player, and if any lanes are in need of help with a quick glance. Teleporters can be used to quickly traverse the map horizontally.

Trivia

• Before the Map Rework Update, the map had 4 lanes. The fourth was Purple (Park). Green Lane was initially called Greenwich, then replaced Park, and is now Greenwich again, though still labeled as Park in the Zipline UI. The center of the map was the Museum, now reworked as the Archmother base.
• Green (Greenwich) originally supplanted Orange (Orchard).
• All the lanes are named after real New York streets. The team's bases used to be named after the train stations Grand Central (Archmother) and Penn Station (Hidden King).
• Towards the right of the team's bases is a Bull and a Bear Statue, respectively located at the Museum (Archmother) and the Factory (Hidden King). These statues are symbolic to the market conditions of a stock market. On a related note, the Bull Statue has a real world counterpart in New York.
• The Statue of Liberty can be seen behind the dock on Yellow Lane.
• The map used to be called street_test, and was later changed to dl_streets in one of the updates, until it was replaced by dl_midtown. street_test and dl_streets can still be accessed in-game with the console command map street_test and map dl_streets, although the former's lighting was broken by updates.
• There used to be a map in the files called caldera_trooper, which featured assets from both Neon Prime and early Deadlock builds. It has since been removed, but was archived by modders. A tour and comparison of caldera_trooper was made by YouTube channel DeadAir. Left side of the Sandbox map was based off it.
• Other unused maps currently accessible in the game files that use Neon Prime assets are called start, 1v1_test and hero_testing.
• Many of the buildings in the Cursed Apple's skyline are based on real New York buildings from the early 1900s.
• The Juke Room shadows are actually 3D models rendered with transparency. There are 4 models: A tall man wearing a fedora, a short man wearing a postman hat, a woman, and a child holding a box.

Gallery

• 
  Title screen
• 
  Old main menu screen
• 
  3 lane update art
• 
  Concept art
• 
  Concept art
• 
  Concept art
• 
  Concept art
• 
  Concept art
• 
  4 lane minimap (dl_streets)
• 
  Old 4 lane minimap (dl_streets) with orange lane
• 
  66th Store building (dl_streets)
• 
  dl_streets with old eclipse skybox
• 
  Neon Prime concept art
• 
  Purple lane in Neon Prime

See also

• Music