Souls

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

Many killed targets will not give Souls to the killer on death, but will instead 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.

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

Hero Kills

Souls from player kills are influenced by the team's overall Soul count: teams with fewer Souls gain more from kills.

Soul Distribution

Trooper souls are distributed between nearby players with the following formula:
- 100/65/30/20/15/11% (for 1/2/3/4/5/6 players)
  - EX: 120 Souls between 4 players would grant each player 24 Souls (120 * 20%)
As of the 2025-04-17 update, souls are no longer duplicated before 8 minutes.

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. 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 + 2.6*[Game Time in Minutes]
  - For example: At 30:00 game time, a broken crate will drop 101 Souls.

Be aware that Soul Orbs can be denied from events like Soul Urn turn-ins, Guardian destruction, or Sinner's Sacrifice machines.

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. 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

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 (Kill)	Soul Value (Orb)	Combined Soul Gain (/m)
Heroes	250 Total		+34.4
Trooper	144 Total		+1.10
Small Denizen	38	0	+0.41
Medium Denizen	73	0	+0.79
Large Denizen	180	0	+1.94
Sinner's Sacrifice	270	0	+2.92
Soul Urn*	700 Total		+230
Guardian**	1650	0	N/A
Walker**	4500	0	N/A
Base Guardian	750	0	N/A
Shrine**	0	0	N/A
Weakened Patron	0	0	N/A
Crates	23 Total		+2.6

* Soul Gain for Urns is divided amongst the team. The Courier gets slightly more souls.

** Soul Gain for structures is given to every allied hero in-game

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 25% more souls from troopers, neutrals, vaults, 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).

References