Billy

Wayyyyy back in 2025, on May 1st, a prominent Deadlock streamer (Deathy) accidently leaked a hero roster from an allegedly, “secret” private test build of Deadlock, which is also currently in alpha. Deadlock was leaked in early 2024, and was invite-only. 2025, the game was still invite-only, but it seemed that Valve had created a test-build within a test-build. Kind of like a russian nesting doll.

Well, the first thing I noticed from the roster was Punkgoat and being a little of a Punk Rocker myself, as soon as I saw that Punkgoat in that leaked hero roster my mind started going crazy with ideas. And eight days later, on May 9th, I posted on the offical Deadlock forums a skillset for Punkgoat. I had made three versions, each building on top of each other. V2 was posted in the forum thread on V1, and V3 was distinct enough that I felt it warranted its own post.

Then, on August 18th, 2025, The Six New Heroes update came about and my dream became a reality as Punkgoat had been reworked into Billy. For this update, Valve did something a little different and gave the community the ability to vote for who gets released. When the sixth and last hero released, Valve shared some voting statistics. “Billy won with the largest lead at just over 30% of the total votes at the time of his release.”

Now, whether or not these threads helped inspire or influence Billy, we will probably never know. Do I feel I had some influence on Billy? Of course! However, the reality is more likely Valve saw my ideas, thought they were trash, but noticed and kept some of the interesting ones. I like to joke that I come up with bad ideas, so that we can get to good ideas. But, really, take a look yourself and compare the final Billy with the ideas in these threads. You might notice some similarities.

Regardless, the fact that Punkgoat was one of the six heroes to become a reality out of 14 heroes that were leaked just fills my heart with so much joy. And the fact that Billy won the largest lead… well, I’m proud to know that Punx Is Not Dead. Enjoy!

V1 Since Punkgoat seemingly doesn’t have a moveset yet, if this isn’t it or like it, I might actually riot.

V2 Since Punkgoat seemingly doesn’t have a moveset yet, if this isn’t it or like it, I might actually riot.

Ability Set v3: Punkgoat is REAL and this better be his ability set or I’ll riot (of course not really)

Buddy, the Six-String Samurai

V1 Buddy, the Six-String Samurai | Four-Eyes. Samurai. King of Rock ‘n’ Roll.

V2 Buddy, the Six-String Samurai | Four-Eyes. Samurai. King of Rock ‘n’ Roll.

V3 Kill over 200 men and play a mean six-string at the same time | You are the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll | You are Buddy, the Six-String Samurai