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New hero City Never Sleeps hero 5 of 6: Nurse Harrow or Violet Friday, October 16 at 2:00 PM PT Release schedule

Major update·

City Never Sleeps: Every Change in Deadlock's September 29, 2026 Update

The biggest update of the year: six new heroes released by vote, a map rework with Steam Vents, jungle camps rebuilt as Haunts, new breakables, and a refreshed HUD and shop.

By the Deadlock Handbook team·Updated ·Checked on the September 29, 2026 patch

City Never Sleeps arrived on Tuesday, September 29, 2026, and it’s the biggest Deadlock update since the map rework. It started a run of hero releases that ends on October 20, and almost every later patch in this list builds on it. Here’s every change, grouped and in plain English.

Six new heroes, released by vote

  • Six heroes were announced: Rat King, Baba, Solomon, Nurse Harrow, Deadman Danny and Violet.
  • They release one at a time on Tuesdays and Fridays at 2pm PT, starting October 2. All six are out by October 20.
  • The order is set by player votes, now cast in a new pre-game lobby. Votes from the winning team count double, and so do votes from your first win of the day.
  • Priority tokens are earned by playing, and campaign posters went up around the city for each candidate.

See City Never Sleeps heroes for the release schedule and each hero’s guide.

The map

  • Steam Vents were added around the map. Stand on one to turn invisible and regenerate health.
  • Jungle camps were rebuilt as Haunts, with many new camp types. See districts, camps and spawn timers.
  • Two new breakables: Tough Crates, which only open to a heavy melee, and Healing Snacks, hidden around the map, which heal you.
  • Golden Statues are now called Buff Containers. They and Sinner’s Sacrifice both grant the same four bonuses: spirit resist, ability range, bullet resist and move speed. Sinner’s Sacrifice bonuses now come at variable timings.
  • Walkers stop throwing fireballs once they die, and their stomp and attack range is shown only when it matters instead of being painted on the ground permanently.
  • In the Sandbox and Explore NYC, the first crates and camps now spawn after 5 seconds instead of 30, and the Sandbox map gained new objectives.

The map overview covers the reworked lanes and districts.

The Broker and Corrupted items (since removed)

The update introduced the Broker, a merchant who traded high-tier items for Corrupted versions with random drawbacks, and gave every Street Brawl player a Corrupted item after the round 5 draft. Both were pulled within a week: the Broker on October 2 and Street Brawl’s Corrupted items on October 4.

Gameplay

  • Abilities and items now activate the instant you press the key, instead of waiting for the game’s next input window. Everything feels a little snappier.
  • Parrying an objective no longer resets your parry cooldown. See melee and parry.
  • Graves can now shoot down Venator’s traps.
  • Grey Talon: if he dies while steering Guided Owl, the owl now explodes straight away instead of hanging in the air until the ability ends. (Not in the patch notes.)
  • Yamato: Flying Strike no longer fails to path to turrets, shrines and objectives.
  • The Doorman had bugs and abuse cases fixed, and Sinclair received many bug fixes.
  • Armor Piercing Rounds was renamed Armor Piercer. (Not in the patch notes.)
  • Bots now spawn facing you.

Interface and controls

  • A refreshed HUD, shop and event feed, plus a new inset HUD option for 21:9 screens.
  • Refunding an ability point is now a right-click on the ability icon (it used to be a left-click on the upgrade button).
  • New settings show a marker until you’ve seen them, and sliders show a tick at their default value.
  • Avoid Hero can be rebound for mice without a middle button. Holding Ctrl to crouch no longer blocks other key combinations, and secondary keybinds no longer need the same modifier as the primary.
  • A dialogue viewer in the Hideout, where heroes now also look at points of interest.
  • Spectators can now see heroes and objectives on the Hidden King, Archmother and Target minimap views, and there’s a new spectator view for the Patron.

Audio, visuals and engine

  • New light and heavy melee sounds for every hero, new death, respawn and killstreak music, and new footsteps for Billy, Mina, Drifter, Silver, Victor, Venator, Apollo, Graves, Celeste, The Doorman, Paige and Rem.
  • Shadows now drop straight down, and hits have new impact effects. Several older heroes got animation updates, and Pocket got new textures.
  • The game moved to the latest Source 2 version, with better anti-cheat, network prediction, and rendering and audio performance.
  • More localisation: Korean hero logos and proper Japanese line breaks.