How Deadlock changed in two years: from 21 heroes to a player record

On 2 October 2026, 228,208 people were playing Deadlock at the same time. That is the game's record according to SteamDB, a third higher than the previous peak of 171,490 set in September 2024, right after Valve officially revealed the game. Between those two numbers came a year in which the player count fell to 15-16 thousand and plenty of people wrote the game off. If you played in 2024 and drifted away, you would come back to a different game: a different map, a different shop, almost twice as many heroes and a ranked mode. Here is what changed, when and why.

One caveat for the whole article: Deadlock is still in an early closed playtest. You can only get in through an invite from a friend who already has it, and Valve has not announced a release date.

2024: 21 heroes, four lanes and patches every two weeks

Valve opened Deadlock's Steam page on 23 August 2024, although closed matches had been running since spring. At that point the game had 21 heroes, a four-lane map and updates every two weeks like clockwork. In the autumn came Hero Labs, a separate queue for testing unfinished heroes, and in September the 22nd hero, Mirage. The winter visual update on 17 December was the last patch of 2024.

2025: three lanes, a new shop and a collapse in players

In January 2025 Valve dropped the fixed two-week schedule; the developers said on Discord that it got in the way of bigger changes. Updates came less often after that, but each one was large.

None of it kept people around. By July 2025 the monthly peak had dropped to 15,763, roughly eleven times below the 2024 record. A game with no release date, invite-only access and rare patches looked abandoned.

August 2025: six heroes and player voting

August was the turning point. Between 18 and 29 August Valve released six heroes: Mina, Billy, The Doorman, Paige, Drifter and Victor. For the first time, players chose the order by voting in a new pre-game lobby, The Hideout, which replaced the old dashboard. Valve counted nearly 6 million votes, and Billy won with a lead of just over 30 percent. The map also got a lighting and visual pass. The August 2025 peak climbed to 60,717.

Another notable patch landed on 21 November: half the souls from killed troopers now drop on the ground and have to be picked up, starting souls went from 400 to 600, and the player camera was repositioned.

Old Gods, New Blood: Patrons, Street Brawl and 60 million votes

The Old Gods, New Blood update arrived on 22 January 2026. Valve overhauled the bases and the Patrons, the giant beings each team guards in its base, added a new post-match screen with an MVP, and introduced Street Brawl. It is a quick four-versus-four mode played as a best of five, where everyone starts each round with the same resources and there is no farming.

There were six new heroes again, released on Mondays and Thursdays: Rem, Graves, Silver, Venator, Celeste and Apollo. Valve counted 60,776,963 votes over the event. Players responded right away: the January peak got close to 99 thousand, and in February, according to SteamDB, it reached about 125 thousand.

Spring and summer 2026: ranked mode

Smaller patches followed, but they changed how fights play out. In March you could jump out of a slide, in May the Midboss started spawning at the beginning of the match, and in June the King of the Hill objective was reworked into the Unstable Rift. On 30 July 2026 matchmaking was split into Standard and Ranked. Ranked needs 60 Standard wins, and you can only pick heroes you have won 15 or more games with. It is solo or duo only, with three bans instead of two, and ranks run from Initiate to Eternus. The first season ends on 7 October.

City Never Sleeps: New York rebuilt

The biggest update so far, City Never Sleeps, arrived on 29 September 2026. It slipped from late August; Valve said it needed more time for playtesting. What changed:

On launch day the player count jumped to 228,086, and on 2 October, when the first new hero arrived, it hit the record of 228,208.

Six new heroes: who is out so far

Two heroes release each week, on Tuesdays and Fridays at 2pm Pacific. The order is again decided by vote, now in the pre-game lobby, and the winning team's votes count double. First up, on 2 October, was Rat King: he throws a Scrap Grenade, sends a swarm of rats at enemies, shrugs off damage in his royal robes and plants a banner that inspires his team. The next hero arrives on Tuesday, 6 October.

Still waiting their turn are Nurse Harrow, Deadman Danny, Baba, Solomon and Violet. Once they are all out, the roster will reach 44, twice what it was when the Steam page went up.

Every wave of heroes

What Valve says comes next

Alongside City Never Sleeps, Valve talked about its plans for the first time in a long while. The developers write that making a multiplayer game is risky, and the best way to reduce that risk is to get it into players' hands early. The team is now working on several things in parallel:

Valve still has not named a release date or opened access.

In short: two years of changes

We now follow Deadlock every week: new heroes, patches and balance changes will get their own stories here.