Deadlock City Never Sleeps: everything the update changed

Deadlock City Never Sleeps went live on 29 September 2026 at 22:25 Polish time and is the game's first major update since January. Valve rebuilt the map, announced six new heroes released through a vote, renamed neutrals to Haunts and added the Broker, who sold stronger items with a random penalty. On launch day Deadlock hit 228,086 concurrent players, and on 6 October, Baba's release day, 236,730 according to SteamDB. The previous record, from September 2024, was 171,490.

Polish sites covered the record, the new heroes and the new lane names. I play Deadlock regularly, analyse matches and coach, so I wrote up the rest: how votes are counted, what penalties the Broker gave, why he disappeared after only three days and how long Valve extended Season 1. Every number below comes from deadlock.wiki, Valve's notes and deadlock-tracker.com, as of 8 October 2026.

New heroes and the vote

The update announces six characters: Nurse Harrow, Rat King, Solomon, Deadman Danny, Baba and Violet. None of them was playable on launch day. Players decide the release order by voting in the lobby before a match.

How votes are counted

Votes from the team that won the match count double. Your first win of the day also gives a double vote. If you play more and win more often, you have more say in who comes out next.

From the first hero release onward you also earn New Hero Priority Tokens by playing. Valve's notes only say that you earn them during play. They do not say how many tokens one match gives or how exactly they work, so I won't guess.

I think the double vote for winners is a good move. If you want a specific hero, you have to play to win, and a click in the lobby is not enough.

Release schedule

Heroes come out twice a week, on Tuesdays and Fridays at 2:00 pm Pacific time, which is 23:00 in Poland. The first slot was Friday 2 October, the second Tuesday 6 October. The remaining dates according to deadlocklabs.gg:

• Friday 9 October
• Tuesday 13 October
• Friday 16 October
• Tuesday 20 October

As of 8 October two new heroes are already in the game: Rat King since 2 October and Baba since 6 October. Nurse Harrow, Deadman Danny, Solomon and Violet remain on the ballot. Valve has not shown their abilities yet, and the wiki lists "To be released!" for each of them. What we know: Solomon is voiced by Carl Lumbly and has a chess theme.

Rat King: abilities and first data

Rat King won the first vote and entered the game on 2 October. His weapon, Sovereign’s Decree, fires two pellets at once, and one of them is always perfectly accurate. According to deadlock.wiki the weapon does 60 DPS, with damage falloff between 20 and 50 metres. The hero starts with 800 HP and 6.8 m/s move speed.

• Scrap Grenade: 26 s cooldown, three detonations of 70 damage each (65 before the 5 October patch) in an 8 m radius and a 20% slow.
• Rat Swarm: up to five rats latch onto the target. Each bite deals 8 spirit damage and removes 1% bullet resist for 4 s.
• Royal Pestments: a barrier worth 15% of max HP and a 15% chance to deflect a bullet back at the shooter, 22 s cooldown.
• Ultimate (the wiki calls it “Rule, Ratannia!”, the 2 October announcement “Banner of Ratannia”): after the 5 October patch 160 s cooldown and 10 s duration (previously 130 s and 12 s). Allies get +3 m/s, slow immunity and 15% damage reduction (previously 20%), and the banner slam deals 200 damage and knocks enemies up.

59% win rate after the first night

Rat King appeared in 99% of matches on his first night and won 59% of them. Deadlock-tracker.com counted this over 20,834 matches: 59.5% in unranked (17,790 games) and 56.5% in ranked (3,044 games). He ranked first of 39 heroes in both queues. Only Drifter had a better start in the game's history, 60.5% in August 2025.

The play profile is more interesting. Rat King averaged 5.4 kills per match against 6.7 for the other heroes, but 15.3 assists against 12.8. He wins team fights rather than duels. The same site noted that every hero who launched above 50% had lost 3.9 points on average by day seven.

In my opinion part of this result is the novelty effect. Opponents don't know his cooldowns or ranges yet, and that always boosts a new character's numbers. You can check current hero positions in our Deadlock tier list.

Baba: abilities of the second new hero

Baba won the second vote and arrived in the game on Tuesday 6 October. She is the old lady from a Central Park bench who feeds the pigeons. Her name and character are based on Baba Yaga. According to deadlock.wiki she starts with 780 HP and 6.5 m/s move speed. Her weapon, the Bunko-Night Special, fires three pellets at once, and damage falls off between 15 and 42 metres.

• Threadsap: 26 s cooldown and 35 m range. Each hit steals 10 Spirit Power from the target, up to 45 in total, and the effect lasts 22 s.
• Granny Long Legs: the bench extends its legs for 10 s. You get bonus move speed, higher jumps, 30% debuff resist and 30% melee resist, and a heavy melee deals 75 damage and slows by 50% for 4 s. 30 s cooldown.
• Baba’s Brew: 25 s cooldown and a 6 m radius. The tea's effect cycles over time: a 100 barrier for 8 s, a 3 s silence or a burn of 12 damage per second for 8 s that also lowers spirit resist.
• Ult, Feed The Birds: 6.5 s channel and 150 s cooldown. The pigeons deal up to 450 damage and slow by up to 32%.

On paper she is, like Rat King, a teamfight hero: she steals Spirit Power, silences and slows a whole group with her ult. I will show win-rate stats once there is a meaningful number of matches.

The new map: lanes, districts and objectives

The lanes got New York names. Blue is Broadway (Uptown, Times Square, Downtown), green is Greenwich (Umbria University, Central Park, The Brownstones) and yellow is York (Stock Exchange, Seaport Dock, Old Fairfax Factories). The map has four districts: Theater, Chinatown, Haunted Lot and Plaza.

Bell Tower and Sunken Plaza

The Bell Tower stands in Chinatown. A rope in the middle of the tower leads to the top, where three Sinner’s Sacrifices wait. The whole map hears the bell, and since the 30 September patch the bell also adds a minimap ping. For rotations I think this is the biggest change on the map: you can no longer take the tower quietly, so what counts is who reacts to the bell first.

Sunken Plaza is filled with purple fog. The lower you go, the less you hear of what is happening above, and your stamina slowly drains. The risk is high, but so are the rewards.

Buff Containers, Steam Vents and crates

Golden Statues are now called Buff Containers. Together with Sinner’s Sacrifice they give permanent bonuses to four stats: Spirit Resist, Bullet Resist, Ability Range and Move Speed. Steam Vents give invisibility and regeneration while you stand on them. Tough Crates only open to a Heavy Melee, and hidden Healing Snacks are placed around the map. Ziplines match the colour of their lane and you can ping them.

Haunts: the new neutrals in numbers

Neutrals are now called Haunts. Deadlock.wiki lists nine families: Gutter Ghoul, Specimen, Past Dues, Barrel Mimic, Stage Hand, Crabbage Pot, Festival Spirit, Slum Shroom and Underhand. Camps come in three sizes:

Camp	HP	Souls	Bullet Resist	Spirit Resist	First spawn	Respawn
Small	129	41	50%	45%	2:00	1:25
Medium	322	68	50%	45%	5:00	4:50
Large	1133	181	60%	55%	8:00	5:35

Camp HP grows by 2.1% per minute, damage by 0.5% per minute and the soul reward by 1.08% of its base value per minute. Health grows more than four times faster than damage, so a large camp cleared late takes longer, but it also pays more souls.

The Broker and corrupted items

According to the wiki the Broker is the Shopkeeper's brother and a Celtics fan. He stood in a corner on the right side of the blue lane Walker, in a mirrored spot for each team. He put up his first stock around minute 30, then roughly every 15 minutes. With him you traded a tier 3 or tier 4 item for its Corrupted version: stronger stats plus a random penalty.

In every match the game rolls the penalties from a fixed pool, and their size is the same for all players in that game. An item cannot roll a penalty to a stat it boosts itself, and some pairs are blocked. The full pool according to deadlock.wiki:

Penalty	Tier 3	Tier 4
Ability Cooldown	-12% to -15%	-15% to -20%
Ability Range	-17% to -23%	-22% to -29%
Ability Duration	-13% to -18%	-17% to -23%
Spirit Power	-26 to -35	-39 to -52
Stamina	-1 to -2	-1 to -2
Stamina Recovery	-16% to -24%	-21% to -28%
Move Speed	-1.70 to -2.30 m/s	-2.34 to -3.16 m/s
Max Health	-298 to -403	-468 to -633
Bullet Resist	-12% to -17%	-16% to -21%
Spirit Resist	-12% to -17%	-16% to -21%
Weapon Damage	-34% to -46%	-47% to -64%
Fire Rate	-22% to -29%	-26% to -35%

The Broker disappeared after three days

From the start Valve announced the Broker as a limited-time shop that would leave after the first new hero's release. That is what happened: on 2 October, Rat King's release day, the Broker disappeared from standard and ranked modes. The notes from that day do not mention the shutdown itself; deadlock.wiki recorded it. On 4 October, also without a note, corrupted items disappeared from Street Brawl, where since 29 September players had received one such item in the draft after round 5.

Valve has not confirmed whether the Broker will return. Deadlock.wiki only says he may show up again in a few months in a different spot on the map. Looking at the table, it is good he was only a launch extra: a -47% to -64% Weapon Damage penalty on a T4 item could ruin a whole gun build. My bet is that if he comes back, it will be in a reworked form.

Ranked: Season 1 extended to 5 November

In the 30 July notes Valve wrote that Season 1 ends on 7 October, and the ranked_seasons.vdata file in the game pointed to Thursday 8 October. Both dates are now out of date. The 6 October update, the same one that added Baba, moved the end of Season 1 to Thursday 5 November 2026 at 2:00 pm Pacific time. In Poland that is 23:00, because both countries will already be on winter time. The next season starts right after it.

If you are grinding rank before the season ends, you have until 5 November, but don't leave your last matches for the last hour. I explained how ranks and points work in my articles on Deadlock Ranked and on the rank system for new players.

Gameplay and QoL changes

Beyond the map and heroes, the update changes plenty of smaller rules:

• Parrying an objective no longer resets the parry cooldown.
• Graves destroys Venator's traps with her weapon.
• Walkers stop firing after death and show a dynamic range indicator.
• Abilities and items trigger instantly when you press the key.
• The shop has a Popular Items tab with purchase rates and game phase, keys 1-6 switch tabs, and while shopping you see the kill feed, chat and scoreboard.
• The event feed shows who landed the killing blow and how the bounty was shared.
• The sandbox got bot recording, a combat log, a DPS meter, a speed graph and damage falloff guides. Crates and neutrals spawn after 5 s instead of 30 s.
• Custom lobbies hold up to 8 spectators.
• Comms abuse gets you muted for the rest of the match and a 30-day comms ban, and the reporter gets a notification.
• Accessibility: Auto Move, Auto Mantle, Auto Fire, subtitles, enemy UI colours, IME support for Japanese, Chinese and Korean, a 21:9 HUD and more settings stored in the cloud.
• Audio: over 15,000 new or updated ping lines, about 1,500 pre-match hero conversations instead of about 700, and new footsteps for 12 heroes.

The 30 September patch added player name options above health bars, an Enemy Damaged colour, the ability to rebind Down Dash and quieter death and respawn sounds. The sandbox DPS meter is what I will use most. Until now comparing two builds meant eyeballing it. You can analyse your post-update matches in our Deadlock Replay Analyzer (UDRA).

Engine and performance after the update

The notes list a newer version of Source 2, better rendering and audio performance, improved anti-cheat and network prediction. Shadows cast by characters now fall straight down instead of depending on the sun direction. Valve says this improves performance and makes enemies easier to track. The video settings got a Preview Video Settings option that shows changes live.

Not everyone felt an improvement. The "huge fps drops after last update?" thread on Steam from 30 September collects reports of drops, including on strong rigs, and in the bug megathread on the official forum one player describes a drop from 180 to 40 FPS. Others say the game runs better than before. As of 8 October Valve has not released a performance fix; the 2, 5 and 6 October patches added and balanced heroes and extended the season, but did not touch performance. Some ConVars from popular configs stopped working, and since March the game blocks matchmaking when you make unsupported changes in certain sections of the gameinfo.gi file.

I covered what to check on your own PC in a separate article on Deadlock FPS drops after the update. If the cause sits in Windows itself rather than in the game, we handle that in our remote PC optimization.

A week after launch the picture looks like this: a new map with four districts, nine Haunt families, two new heroes in the game, four more due by 20 October and a Broker that left after three days, as announced. Valve itself says the game is still not ready for full release: before launch it wants to keep the freedom to change progression and hero and hideout customization, and it calls alternate modes speculative for now. If you are just coming back to the game, start with our Deadlock guide, and play your ranked matches before 5 November.

Frequently asked questions

When do the next heroes come out in Deadlock?

Valve releases two heroes a week, on Tuesdays and Fridays at 23:00 Polish time. After Rat King (2 October) and Baba (6 October) the remaining dates are 9, 13, 16 and 20 October. The player vote decides the order.

How does the vote for new heroes work?

You vote in the lobby before a match. Votes from the team that wins the match count double, and your first win of the day also gives a double vote. From the first hero release onward you also earn New Hero Priority Tokens by playing.

Is the Broker still in Deadlock?

No. Valve announced him as a limited-time shop, and on 2 October, Rat King's release day, he disappeared from standard and ranked modes. On 4 October corrupted items also disappeared from Street Brawl. Valve has not confirmed whether the Broker will return.

When does Season 1 end in Deadlock?

Valve moved the end of Season 1 to Thursday 5 November 2026, 2:00 pm Pacific time, which is 23:00 in Poland. Earlier the notes said 7 October and the season file in the game said 8 October.

Is Rat King too strong?

After his first night he had a 59% win rate over 20,834 matches and first place out of 39 heroes. New heroes who launched above 50% had lost 3.9 points on average by day seven, so it is too early to judge.

Is Deadlock officially released yet?

No. After City Never Sleeps Valve says the game is still not ready for full release. Before launch it wants to keep the freedom to change progression and hero and hideout customization, and it calls alternate game modes speculative for now.