Valve Deadlock City Never Sleeps update leads to an all-time peak
Valve released a major update for its multiplayer hero shooter Deadlock on Tuesday, helping the still unannounced game achieve a record number of concurrent players. The new “City Never Sleeps” update introduces a new map, six new characters, and a host of new enemies – the so-called Neutrals, now officially called “Haunts.”
Shortly after the release of the new Deadlock update, the player count skyrocketed to over 228,000 concurrently active players – an all-time high for the game, as reported by SteamDB.
Valve releases deadlock update
Alongside the “City Never Sleeps” update, Valve also released an update on the game’s overall development status, which is clearly far from complete. Following the “Old Gods New Blood” update for Deadlock in January, Valve stated: “We felt we wanted to improve some aspects of the core game itself before moving on to the fine-tuning phases of game development (such as updating older hero graphics).”
The Deadlock team states that they have been working on a number of features in parallel, some of which are included in City Never Sleeps.
“We’ve been working on a few other things in parallel with this update over the past few months. […] These include aspects like game progression and the customization of heroes and hideouts, as we want to adjust and significantly change these features based on feedback before the game’s full release. We’re also currently working on other, more speculative things (so we’re not 100% sure yet whether they’ll be released, depending on how playtests go, although the results so far are promising), such as extensive reworks/additions to items and alternative game modes that will expand the scope of the game.”
Ultimately, the team seems satisfied with the development of Deadlock over the past few years and the numerous feedback from players.
What does the “City Never Sleeps” update for Deadlock include?
A great many. Too many to list here, but among the highlights is the map of New York City, which captures the atmosphere of the city that never sleeps from the early to the mid-20th century, albeit in a highly stylized and eerie way.
Deadlock’s New York introduces ghostly figures; the neutral creatures familiar to players have been replaced by imaginative new beings. These include:
- Specimen – a severed hand in a glass jar
- Past Dues – Library-Inspired Spirits
- Gutter Ghouls – walking garbage bags with cyclopean patterns
- Barrel Mimics – Barrels (and exploding barrels?) with limbs and lug wrenches
- Stage Hands – puppets controlled by ghostly hands.
- Crabbage Pots – one of New York’s famous cryptids, seemingly inspired by “Little Shop of Horrors”
- Festival Spirit – Souls residing in Chinese lanterns
- Shrooms – the magicians of relaxation mushrooms
- Underhands – gargoyles that might be pickpockets
Valve is also introducing six new heroes, many of whom exude New York flair: Nurse Harrow, Rat King, Solomon, Deadman Danny, Baba, and Violet. Rat King (with a pizza-eating rat as his supplicant) and Solomon (an ambitious chess player) immediately catch the eye, but there’s also a small, old lady named Baba who hangs out with pigeons. Players can vote in-game on which of the six new Deadlock heroes appears first.
Further details about the City Never Sleeps update can be found on the official Deadlock website.
