Deadlock City Never Sleeps Update Overview: Map, Haunts, Broker and New Heroes

City Never Sleeps is Valve’s 29 September 2026 update for Deadlock: a rebuilt New York map, new neutral creatures called Haunts, six new heroes, HUD, quality-of-life and accessibility changes, and a limited-time merchant called the Broker. This overview works as a reference for the map, the Haunts, the new map mechanics, the interface changes and settings, with dated boxes for the two parts that expire: the Broker and the hero vote.

Valve describes City Never Sleeps as a massive visual update to the map and neutrals, alongside new heroes, HUD changes, quality-of-life additions and accessibility options. The neutrals you knew have been replaced by a variety of creatures with new behaviours, the map is split into named areas and four districts, and new objectives sit on top of that. Six new heroes arrive over time through a player vote, and the Broker sells Corrupted versions of high-tier items for a few days. Deadlock remains a multiplayer game in early development, with access by friend invite from playtesters.

The update page presents the map as a tourist guide in three area groups titled Broadway, Greenwich and York. It marks the Broadway group as the Blue Lane and the Greenwich group as the Green Lane, and gives no lane colour for York. The names below follow the page’s order.

Haunts are the replacement neutrals, and the page says they come with new behaviours. The table lists the nine the page names and the area or district it ties each one to.

The page gives no health or soul numbers per Haunt, but it says the HUD now shows each camp’s soul value and comparative difficulty, so read them in the match.

Six mechanics are new or revamped, and the table sticks to what Valve’s page says each one does.

Laning (our reading)

Steam Vents and the permanent Buff Container stats could make moving between lanes and back to your own lane safer and more repeatable. This is our reading of the descriptions, not a Valve statement.

Farming (our reading)

Our reading: Tough Crates add a reason to use Heavy Melee while farming, and Bell Tower could attract contests over souls. Sunken Plaza is described as high risk, high reward, but its reward type and quantity are not stated in the update description cited here. How much they pay compared with a Haunt camp is not published on the page.

Ganks (our reading)

The Bell Tower’s bell is audible across the map while souls are collected, so a team taking it may announce itself. Sunken Plaza’s fading sound and draining stamina make it a risky place to be caught, and stealth from Steam Vents may cut both ways for ambushes. None of this is tested, and it is our reading.

Health bars, event feed and bounties

• Health bars now show player names, a Rejuvenator Indicator when a hero has a use available, an Ultimate Indicator for allies, the current health value and a Critical Health Status flag.
• Stamina Tracking shows enemy stamina to help you judge their remaining movement options.
• The page also lists damage number options, ally indicators at any distance, stats and shop stats, and an event feed that shows the killing-blow item or ability, bounties and soul bag pickups.
• Bounties show the full bounty on a target and your personal share of the kill.

Shop and pings

The shop surfaces Popular Items from live player data, item filters, shop tabs mapped to keys 1 to 6, and build copy and paste tools. Valve’s page cites over 15,000 new and updated pings, including item pings, ability cooldown pings and enemy status pings.

Timers and small indicators

The page lists in-world respawn timers for Haunt camps and Midboss, a topbar Midboss timer, a parry cooldown indicator near the reticle, and a post-game graph of permanent buffs. Those are the items most likely to change how you time fights, so check them in your first match.

Accessibility options now sit in their own section covering visual, audio and control settings. The list below shows what each option does where the page describes it.

• Enemy UI Color is listed in the section.
• VO Subtitles show subtitles for in-game dialogue when enabled, and you can change size, colours and font.
• Auto Move starts when you double-tap the forward movement input, so you no longer hold the key. Pressing forward or backward again cancels it.
• Auto Mantle mantles you onto ledges you walk into while moving forward on the ground, without pressing Jump, and works the same moving backward.
• Auto Fire keeps your weapon firing without holding Fire; the page also lists reduced camera shake and customisable reticle fill and border colours.
• A Keybind Map shows every key and mouse button you have bound, which are free and what each does, and Shareable Settings copy your reticle and keybind settings as a code for other players, or apply theirs.

Sandbox tools also received an expansion. Bot recording and looping, a combat log, a speed graph, a DPS meter and map routing are all listed on the page.

The update page also describes in-match report notifications and a comms ban: players found abusing comms are muted for the rest of the match and get a 30-day comms ban. Valve’s 30 July 2026 ranked post lists active sanctions such as low priority or a comms ban as blocking the ranked queue, and that has not been re-checked since this update. For how a queue penalty works, see our Deadlock low priority queue guide.

The Broker exchanges high-tier items for Corrupted versions while supplies last. His first shipment is stocked around the 30-minute mark, and additional Corrupted Items arrive on average every 15 minutes after that. Each match, all Corrupted items get random negative attributes from a predefined set. The strength of those positive and negative attributes varies a little from match to match, but within a single match every player sees the same values.

Six new heroes are introduced under the heading Meet the Locals, and players vote on the release order. Two heroes release a week on Tuesdays and Fridays at 2:00pm PT. The hero names appear on the update page’s poster row: Deadman Danny, Nurse Harrow, Solomon, Baba, Violet and Rat King. Voting takes place entirely within the new Pregame lobby screen, and the winning team’s votes count as double. Starting with the first hero release, playing earns priority tokens, and Campaign Posters let you show support for a favourite upcoming hero. What the tokens are spent on is not stated in the text we read.

Ranked has its own hero rules: Valve’s 30 July 2026 post requires at least 15 Standard wins on a hero before you can pick it in ranked, and that has not been re-checked for the new heroes. Our Deadlock ranked mode guide covers the ladder and entry rules.

Time cost: Valve says two heroes release a week, so six heroes take about three weeks from 2 October 2026. The page does not say whether each Tuesday or Friday slot carries one hero, so that span is our arithmetic.

Valve’s developer note in the Steam post says Midboss (the model and the layout to a degree), Guardians and Walkers are important, have not been reached yet and will be a focus of upcoming updates. Progression and hero and hideout customisation are being worked on, and Valve wants to be able to adjust them based on feedback before full release. Large item redesigns and alternate game modes are more speculative, since Valve says it is not 100% sure they will be released. Hero remodels are likely to be worked on gradually in the near future. Read the full note in Valve’s City Never Sleeps Steam announcement, and the map and mechanics on the playdeadlock.com update page.

Not found in the text we read: Haunt health and soul numbers, the lane colour of the York group, and a single area for Past Dues, Gutter Ghouls and Barrel Mimics. We did not check these in-game.

Sources and Confidence

This table separates what the studio has confirmed and what is not confirmed yet. Each claim below is tied to the post and the game version it describes.