Deadlock Station Review: The Battle Is Over Before It Begins

Deadlock Station looked, from the outside, like a game I’d have figured out in about ten minutes. Squad of robots, big empty wasteland, aliens that want you dead…How complicated could it be?

As it turns out, there’s way more going on here than I first thought. It’s not the most complex of games, don’t get me wrong, but there’s a lot more than you initially realize going on under the surface.

Released on August 19, 2026, Deadlock Station is the newest game from Luxorix Games, the indie developer behind Spaceship Looter and Space Robinson. You’re in charge of a squad of synths, sending them out into a wasteland that’s now overrun with aliens. Being an auto battler, as you’d expect the combat is mostly automatic, but you decide where to position each member of your squad and when to use their abilities. You can also use different parts of the battlefield to your advantage.

There’s a story behind all of this too, as you gradually find out more about the mysterious Event and why all the humans have disappeared.

I really enjoyed this one. The basics are easy to get the hang of, and it gives you plenty to keep working towards. There’s a huge amount to unlock, and even when a run doesn’t go particularly well, you’re still gaining experience and making progress. The further I got, the more weapons, armor, skills and upgrades I had to play around with, which made going back out for another run feel more enjoyable and worthwhile.

At under $10 (correct at the time of writing), it offers exceptional value for money too. Let’s get into what the game does well, and what you can expect if you give it a go.

At a Glance

You’re Still in Charge

As I mentioned earlier, Deadlock Station is an auto battler, so once a fight begins, your synths will automatically target and attack enemies. That doesn’t mean you can just sit back and watch them get on with it though.

You decide where each member of your squad is positioned. You’re also in control of their abilities, what weapons and gear they’re using. Then there’s the battlefield itself. There are all sorts of things scattered around that you can use against enemies, including land mines and other hazards. You can also build defenses like spike walls, which can be placed around the battlefield to give your squad a bit of extra help.

I really liked this side of the combat. Your synths may be doing the shooting themselves, but there’s still enough for you to think about. Also, thankfully, you can pause. This became particularly useful when there was a LOT happening on screen and I needed a second to work out where everyone was, which abilities were ready, and what I wanted to do next.

The combat is actually pretty simple once you get the hang of it, but that doesn’t mean the game is easy. Some battles are genuinely challenging, particularly when you start coming up against stronger enemies.

For me, the difficulty felt about right. I wasn’t flying through every raid without thinking, but I also wasn’t getting so frustrated that I wanted to stop playing.

You’ve Got Ten Synths to Find and Quests to Unlock

You start Deadlock Station with two synths and it doesn’t take long before a third joins you. From there, you’ll gradually unlock more as you progress, with ten different characters available altogether.

You can only take three out on a raid, so once you’ve unlocked a few of them, you’ve got some decisions to make about who you actually want in your squad. Each character has their own skills, and obviously, some combinations are going to work better for you than others. I definitely found myself having favorites, but there’s a good reason to try everyone at least a few times.

Now let’s talk character quests. These were actually one of my favorite things to unlock. They give you something else to work towards, add a little more to each character, and encouraged me to use synths I probably wouldn’t have chosen otherwise.

You’ll want to look after whoever you take with you too. If one of your synths dies during a raid, they stay dead for the rest of that run unless you come across a merchant further on in the riad to buy them back. So, if you lose someone early on, you could be attempting to finish the rest of the raid with just two characters.

There are upgrades that can help with this as you progress, but until you unlock them, losing someone can make the rest of your run considerably more difficult.

Which Way Are We Going?

Raids aren’t just a case of moving from one fight to the next. You’ll have different paths to choose from, and what’s waiting along each one can make a pretty big difference to how the rest of your run goes.

You’ll come across rest stops where you can pick up upgrades, as well as merchants selling weapons, armor, and other useful items. Of course, you’re not going to be able to buy everything you want, so you’ll have to decide what’s actually worth spending your resources on.

I liked having different routes to choose from because it breaks things up. Sometimes I desperately needed a rest stop, other times I’d rather take the chance and see if I could pick up something better for my squad.

You also unlock different starter sets for raids as you progress, giving you more options when heading back out into the wasteland. It’s another fairly simple part of the game, but combined with everything else, it helps stop each run from feeling exactly the same as the last.

There Is A LOT to Unlock

If there’s one thing Deadlock Station definitely isn’t short of, it’s things to unlock. Seriously, there’s loads.

You’ve got:

• Weapons
• Armor, artifacts, and defensive items
• Hero skills
• Character quests
• Items to discover in the wasteland
• New starter sets for raids
• Global upgrades for your synths
• Upgrades for the Station itself

You’re constantly working towards something. Even when a run doesn’t go particularly well, you’re gaining experience that helps you make progress and unlock more things. As you continue playing, you gradually get access to better equipment, more skills, new characters, and permanent upgrades that make your squad stronger.

So dying and starting another run never really bothered me as I knew I was gradually getting stronger anyway.

That progression also means the difficulty feels quite rewarding. There were times when I reached a point where things became considerably harder, but after playing a few more runs, gaining experience, and unlocking some more upgrades, I was better equipped to deal with it.

For me, that’s a big part of what kept the game enjoyable. There was nearly always something else I wanted to unlock, and once I’d unlocked it, obviously I wanted to take it out and see what it could do. Then I’d spot the next thing I wanted…You can probably see where this is going.

There’s a Story Here Too

The story isn’t the main reason I kept playing Deadlock Station, but I did enjoy it. As you make your way further into the wasteland, you gradually learn more about the Event and what happened to all the humans. I won’t go into the details because discovering that is obviously part of the game, but there’s enough going on to make me want to know what had happened.

It’s not what I’d call a story-heavy game though. You’re not going to spend huge amounts of time sitting through dialogue or watching cutscenes between every raid. The story is there, it continues as you progress, and it gives you a reason for everything you’re doing without constantly pulling you away from the gameplay.

Personally, I think that works really well here. The character quests help too. As I mentioned earlier, I really enjoyed unlocking these, and they give the individual synths a bit more personality rather than making them feel like ten different sets of stats you’re swapping in and out.

It Looks and Sounds Pretty Good Too

Deadlock Station uses pixel-art graphics, and while it’s not the most visually impressive game I’ve ever played, I like how it looks. More importantly, everything is pretty easy to see. That becomes important when you’ve got three synths, a group of aliens, abilities going off, and various things around the battlefield that you’re trying to use to your advantage.

The soundtrack is good too. This might sound like a strange thing to specifically mention, but with games like this, you’re going to hear the same music a LOT. Thankfully, even after playing for hours, it never reached the point where I was scrambling for the volume button. So, that’s a win.

Did Anything Start to Feel Repetitive?

This was something I wondered about before playing because, ultimately, you are going out on raids and repeating the same basic gameplay loop over and over again. Surprisingly, I didn’t find Deadlock Station particularly repetitive. I think the progression has a lot to do with that.

You’re constantly unlocking new things, improving your characters, finding different equipment, and gradually opening up more of the game. So while the basic structure of a run doesn’t dramatically change, what you have available to you does.

Obviously, if you play for long enough, you’re eventually going to see the same enemies and areas again. That’s just part of this type of game. However, I never reached a point where I felt like I was repeating runs purely for the sake of repeating them.

Is Deadlock Station Difficult?

Yes, but not ridiculously so. The fundamentals are pretty straightforward, and I don’t think it takes particularly long to understand how everything works. The challenge comes from actually making it through the raids, particularly as you reach stronger enemies and later parts of the game.

There were definitely times when I reached a fight and thought, well, this isn’t going well. But Deadlock Station is very much built around progression. The more you play, the more experience you gain and the more you unlock. That gives you better options for future runs, and gradually, something that seemed difficult earlier becomes much more manageable.

I liked that. I want a roguelite to give me a reason to keep playing after a failed run, and Deadlock Station does exactly that.

Is Deadlock Station Worth the Money?

Absolutely. Actually, this is probably one of the easiest parts of the review to answer. At the time of writing, Deadlock Station costs less than $10, and I think that’s exceptional value for money.

There are ten different characters to unlock, 27 Steam achievements, loads of weapons and armor, hero skills, character quests, artifacts, Station upgrades, starter sets, and plenty of other things to discover as you play. Perhaps most importantly too, those things aren’t all unlocked within your first couple of hours. There’s a lot to work towards here.

Is There Anything I Didn’t Like?

Honestly, there wasn’t anything that particularly bothered me while playing Deadlock Station. That’s not to say everyone is going to love it. The biggest thing to consider is probably the auto-battler combat. If you want complete control over every attack your characters make, this isn’t going to give you that. You control their positioning and abilities, but the actual attacking is handled automatically.

There is repetition too. You are going to repeat raids, see the same enemies again, and follow the same basic loop quite a few times. I didn’t find that boring because I always had something new to work towards, but if you don’t enjoy games built around repeating runs and gradually becoming stronger, Deadlock Station probably isn’t going to change your mind.

The story is fairly light as well. I enjoyed following it, but if you’re looking for a game where the story is the main event, this isn’t it. None of those things are necessarily problems with the game, they’re just things worth knowing before you buy it.

My Verdict

I really enjoyed Deadlock Station. It takes a fairly simple idea and manages to get a surprising amount out of it. The combat is easy to understand, positioning your synths and using the battlefield keeps you involved, and there’s enough of a challenge that I never felt like I could just switch off and let the game do everything for me.

However, the progression is probably what I liked most. There is SO much to unlock. New characters, weapons, armor, skills, quests, upgrades, starter sets…there always seemed to be something else I was working towards. As you’re still gaining experience and making progress when a run goes badly, starting again never felt like I’d just wasted my time.

It’s fun, challenging without being frustrating, and there’s a surprising amount here to keep you playing. If you enjoy roguelites, auto battlers, getting to go out on quests, or games where gradually becoming stronger is a big part of the fun, I’d definitely recommend giving this one a try.