Deadlock City Never Sleeps Update — Haunts, Districts, six new heroes
Valve shipped City Never Sleeps on September 29, 2026 — build 6712, announced at 20:25 UTC. It is primarily a map and neutrals update: every neutral camp is now a Haunt, the lanes are named Broadway, Greenwich and York, four new Districts open up between them, and a limited-time Broker trades Corrupted items. Six new heroes follow by player vote from October 2. This page tracks what the update does to the meta in measured numbers once the post-update sample is big enough — no speculation.
Sample building — measured win-rate effects of City Never Sleeps land here from Day 3 at the earliest, once enough post-update matches accumulate (3,000+ per hero on both sides of the boundary). Each new hero is added to our hero roster on its release day and joins the Deadlock tier list once its own matches clear the sample gate. No estimates, no speculation: this page only ever shows measured numbers.
What the update changed
The map — Haunts, named lanes, four Districts
›Haunts replace the old neutral camps: a variety of creatures with new behaviors.
›The lanes are now named Broadway, Greenwich and York.
›Four new Districts sit hidden between the main streets: the Theater, Chinatown, the Haunted Lot and the Plaza.
New souls and buffs to take
›Bell Tower (Chinatown District): a concentrated soul hotspot at the top — collecting it rings the bell loudly across the whole map.
›Tough Crates need a Heavy Melee to break open and pay out extra souls.
›Buff Containers: the revamped golden statues can now also grant permanent Spirit Resist, Bullet Resist, Ability Range or Move Speed.
›Healing Snacks are hidden around the map for a quick heal in a pinch.
›Steam Vents give invisibility and a small amount of regen while you stand on them.
›Sunken Plaza (Plaza District): a high-risk, high-reward space beneath the square — your stamina fades as you descend.
The Broker — limited time
›A mysterious merchant who exchanges your high-tier items for Corrupted versions while supplies last.
›His first shipment is stocked around the 30-minute mark (arrival varies); more Corrupted items come on average every 15 minutes after that.
›The catch: each match, Corrupted items get random negative attributes from a predefined set — the same for every player in that game.
›He is only around for a few days: he leaves once the first new hero arrives.
Six new heroes, released by vote
›Deadman Danny, Rat King, Solomon, Violet, Nurse Harrow and Baba.
›Players vote on the release order. Two heroes release a week, on Tuesdays and Fridays at 2:00pm PT — the first release is October 2.
›Voting now happens in the new Pregame lobby: the winning team's votes count double, and your first win of the day doubles your votes.
Balance — no patch-note numbers
›The official notes list no hero or item number changes — only a handful of targeted tweaks.
›Graves can now destroy Venator's traps with her gun; successfully parrying objectives no longer resets your Parry cooldown.
›Ability and item use now fires the instant the button is pressed instead of waiting for the next input window.
›The game files (client 6701 to 6712) do change some numbers the notes don't mention, including: Wraith's Telekinesis channel time goes from 0.65s to 1.25s, Pocket's Flying Cloak cooldown from 25s to 26s, Sinclair's alt-fire bullet damage now grows with level, and the Patron's and Walkers' slows drop from 30% to 24%.
HUD, quality of life & accessibility
›New health bars show player names, Rejuvenator and ultimate indicators, live health values, stamina and critical-health status.
›The shop adds Popular Items from live player data, item filters and better search and navigation.
›Reworked pings (over 15,000 new and updated pings), item pinging, and in-world respawn timers for Haunt camps and the Midboss.
›Dedicated accessibility settings: enemy UI colors, customizable VO subtitles, Auto Move, Auto Fire, Auto Mantle, reduced camera shake and reticle colors.
›A player reported mid-match and found abusing comms is muted for the rest of the match and gets a 30-day comms ban.
How this site handles the boundary
›Tier list, counters and synergy windows cut at the update boundary once 20,000+ post-update matches are in; hero momentum and weekly trends deliberately span it. Post-update matches have almost no ban phase, so ban rates stay on the last window that had one.
›Measured win-rate movers are published here once both windows clear 3,000 matches per hero. Movement below that gate is deliberately not shown — thin windows produce noise, not news.
›New heroes have no pre-update matches, so they never appear in the movers above; the predictor refuses drafts containing them until the model is retrained on their matches.
A new city to fight over
Check your draft before the horn
The Batru Deadlock predictor turns any 6v6 draft into a calibrated win probability — when it says 60%, it wins about 60% of the time. Its model is trained on pre-update matches — until it's retrained on City Never Sleeps games, read its numbers as the pre-update picture.