As promised, a new Deadlock update is finally here, and it already feels worth the wait. Over eight months on from Old Gods, New Blood, Valve’s latest overhaul brings the entire world of the Cursed Apple to life. Dubbed ‘City Never Sleeps,’ this massive revamp includes a much more substantial upgrade to the visuals and layout of the map, kickstarts another vote-based rollout of six extra heroes, and marks a key stage in the development of the MOBA. It took less than an hour to break Deadlock’s concurrent player record; let’s take a look at why with a rundown of what’s new.
To call the Deadlock City Never Sleeps update big would be to severely understate things. In every corner, you can feel the love poured in – this feels like a patch packed to the brim with eight months of careful craft. Valve’s twisted take on New York City suddenly feels vibrant and alive; it’s actually such a dramatic difference that I suspect it’ll prove at least briefly controversial. The vibrant colors, glowing signs, and splashes of detail are so eye-catching that they’ll probably distract you from the action – for the first few weeks, at least.
Each lane now feels like its own distinct region, and this has been further emphasized by the neutral creature camps being replaced by unique varieties that show up in each area. Middle lane is the blue of Broadway, running from Uptown to Downtown with Times Square smack bang in the middle. The green lane of Greenwich tracks through rows of tall trees along the path from Umbria University, through Central Park, and to The Brownstones. The yellow lane of York is all business and industry, comprising the Stock Exchange, Seaport Dock, and the Old Fairfax Factories.
Even the four main regions between them are much more well-defined now. Theater District plays home to puppeteered marionettes, Chinatown features sinister red lanterns and toothy plant life, the Haunted Lot is filled with demonic fungi, and Plaza plays home to one of the unique new features you’ll find dotted about. Drop into the suspicious square of purple mist that lurks below ground, and you’ll find some valuable crates and creeps – but just being down there saps your stamina and restricts your ability to hear.
If you’d rather be the one making the noise, Chinatown plays home to a Bell Tower that is also filled with a wealth of soul-making opportunities. However, the bell rings loudly while you’re taking advantage of them, letting everyone know what you’re up to. Alongside this are new ‘tough crates’ that take a heavy melee to crack open, revamped golden statues with a range of permanent stat buffs, flying apples that heal you when collected, and steam vents where you’ll regen gradually as you hide from view among the smog.
As mentioned, there are six new heroes that will be joining over the course of the next three weeks, with the first of them on Friday October 2 and subsequent ones every Tuesday and Friday. The voting system returns, though it’s now done in the pregame lobby, with double votes for the winning team, and an extra double-up if it’s your first win of the day. You can slap down posters for the six newcomers to show your support, and playing matches will earn priority tokens to help guarantee you can get hands-on with them as they release.
Community consensus for the first pick already seems pretty locked in stone: the long awaited Rat King is “scrappy, regal, and tenacious,” and he’s been a character Deadlock players have been awaiting for a long time now. Of the others, I’ve got to say I really love them all, though my personal pick goes to Nurse Harrow, the “strict, terrifying savior” with immaculate vibes and a glare that could make anyone think twice.
The rest are no slouches either. Solomon is a wise-looking, chess-themed “focused strategist.” Deadman Danny is a “reckless and explosive” high-flyer whose moustache is only surpassed by his stylish flight helmet. Violet is an “ambitious, nimble, and creative” young painter. Baba is a “cackling, beady, and hexing” old lady with a cup of toxic tea and a fleet of birds, who can only only have been inspired by the legend of forest witch the Baba Yaga.
Outside of those additions, it seems that almost every other aspect of Deadlock has been given attention. Redesigned health bars better show relative strength, indicate ultimate availability, keep track of stamina, and even show the soul value of neutrals. You can adjust how health and damage numbers are displayed. Improved ally indicators will make it easier to keep track of your teammates, while new stat icons make it more apparent how shop items and mid-fight effects are impacting your character.
The shop now features a ‘popular items’ tab to see what people are buying most frequently based on live player data, while fresh filters let you track down the stats you care about most. Additionally, helpful information like the kill feed, chat, and scoreboard can be seen while in the shop window. That event feed has also been upgraded, now showing the likes of exactly what ability or item scored a kill, and both the overall and personal bounties awarded for each takedown.
Additionally, there’s now a new shop in town – the Broker. This mysterious dealer shows up at an unspecified time around the half-hour mark, then returns roughly every 15 minutes thereafter. He offers the option to exchange items for ‘corrupted’ versions with amplified stats but a randomized downside. His wares are also highly illegal, and that means he actually won’t always be around. Valve warns that he’ll be vanishing for a while “once the first new hero makes their arrival” as the authorities catch on to his antics, suggesting he could show up again at random any time in the next few weeks or months.
Changes just keep on coming. There are “over 15,000 new and updated pings,” including more options for flagging the minimap, heroes, or specific targets such as troopers, ziplines, shop items, and the rift. Outside of those additions, the number of pre-match conversations between characters has doubled, and there are “over 10,000” new voice lines in total on top of the pings. There’s even a dialogue player in the base to listen to them all.
Your parry now shows an indicator when it’s on cooldown, there are timers for Midboss and Haunt camp respawns, and the postgame screen includes a graph to track permanent buffs collected, along with more prominent player commendations. In the training room, you can record and playback bot actions, add character buffs, pull up DPS meters and speed graphs, and study a full combat log for detailed breakdowns of every interaction. There are also hotkeys available for enabling common testing actions such as noclip.
Valve has also upped its accessibility options. You can now modify many of the UI colors, along with customizable subtitles for in-game dialogue. There are settings for auto-move, auto-mantle, and auto-fire (toggled on and off with a single press of your mouse), as well as camera shake reduction and improved reticle customization. City Never Sleeps is a truly comprehensive overhaul, and you’ll likely be spotting small changes for months to come.
With the launch of its new update, Valve thanks players for their continued support. “We think building a multiplayer game is very hard and risky, and the best way to minimize that risk is to make sure that we are able to have it in players’ hands from an early state to help shape it,” the team writes. It notes that while previous updates were “more singularly focused,” this year it’s been “working on several different things in parallel,” including the likes of progression and customization for heroes and the hideout, as it wants to “significantly change” those before Deadlock’s full release.
“There are also other things we’ve been working on that are more speculative (as in we aren’t 100% sure if they will be released or not based on how playtesting goes, though results so far have been promising.” These include the likes of “large item redesigns or additions, and alternate game modes that expand the scope of the game.” Valve also notes that it does still consider updates to the likes of Midboss, Guardians, and Walkers to be “important,” but “more of a known quantity” that it can address later on.
The Deadlock ‘City Never Sleeps’ update is out now. New heroes will be released based on community votes every Tuesday and Friday at 2pm PT / 5pm ET / 10pm BST / 11pm CEST, starting on Friday October 2. “We hope you will like this update,” Valve concludes, adding, “don’t forget to vote!”
Somewhat unsurprisingly, the patch quickly saw Deadlock’s concurrent player count smashed, reaching an initial high of over 228,000 active users. More importantly, however, the map overhaul and UI improvements have gone a substantial way to transforming Deadlock from a game that felt distinctly ‘in beta’ to one that seems much more real and final. I’m sure there’s plenty more to come before the game officially comes out, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this ends up feeling like the true start of its almost inevitable snowball to success.