Deadlock's Rat King Has 126 Voice Lines Just for Throwing Rats

Ever wanted to command an army of rats and scream encouragement at them by name? Deadlock's new hero Rat King is here to make that dream a reality. Valve's not-so-secret MOBA got a massive update this week, and among the six new heroes added, one giant humanoid rodent stands out for a very specific reason.

Rat King is a tank who started life as a fan concept before officially joining Deadlock's roster. He loves two things: rats, and throwing those rats at his enemies. That second passion is represented by his power "Rat Swarm," which unleashes a horde of rodents from beneath his cape to leap onto foes and deal spirit damage over time. And Valve has gone absolutely overboard in celebrating this.

According to Deadlock voice line viewer—yes, that's a real site—Rat King arrived with 1,534 individual utterances, roughly in line with other heroes. But 126 of those lines are dedicated solely to Rat Swarm. Some are generic power callouts like "I got a whole lotta rats, baby!" but many refer to individual rats by name. Rat King will yell things like "Get 'em Lou!" or "My boy Widget is gonna chew you up!" or the wonderfully unhinged "Rabies Ronnie has a gift for ya. Surprise, it's rabies!"

He also shouts out entire rat factions, implying a whole society living under his cloak. Group callouts include "The Pantegana boys say hello!" and "Say hello to the McMullen gang!" Our personal favorite? "I brought Gumdrop's whole polycule!" It's absurd, it's charming, and it's exactly the kind of personality injection the City Never Sleeps update brought to the game.

Rat King isn't the only one who got chatty, either. Alongside the new heroes, Valve doubled the number of voice lines for every existing character in Deadlock. That's a huge amount of extra flavor for a game that's still technically invite-only.

It's this kind of attention to detail that has made Deadlock so popular despite its limited access. How much longer Valve keeps the game under wraps is anyone's guess, but there's clearly no financial rush—Valve can afford to take its time. In the meantime, players who do get in can enjoy a hero who treats rat-throwing like an art form.

What do you think of Rat King's ridiculously detailed voice lines? Will you be picking him up when you get into Deadlock?