City Never Sleeps: A Dive into the Cursed World of Deadlock

The newest update for Valve’s occult classic Deadlock was released on September 29th, and it brought along some major changes to the game. The City Never Sleeps update introduced a new and improved map, as well as 6 new characters, as is tradition for major updates to the game. These aforementioned characters are The Ratking, Baba, Solomon, Deadman Danny, Violet and Nurse Harrow. In this article, we will go through what Deadlock is and how each new character changed the way we view the game.

Deadlock is an early-access 6v6 hero-shooter Multiplayer Online Battle Arena, or MOBA for short, about two patron gods vying for ascension. The main goal is to farm souls (the game’s currency), buy items, take objectives and ultimately kill the other team’s patron. In MOBA fashion, it has many items for you to buy. With the depth of movement, the parry system adding mind games to every melee interaction, and the depth that comes with fully understanding your character’s kit, there is a lot to learn. However, it is one of the easier MOBAs to get into thanks to its smaller item shop than its contemporaries, as well as the ability to easily copy other builds players have made. The feeling of mastering slides, edge boosting, and even rocket jumping with Deadman Danny is rewarding.

The gameplay can be amazing, but without solid character writing, it would just be another MOBA. However, this is a Valve game. Each character is brimming with life. Despite having 44 characters in its roster, no two are alike. Even if they have similar motivations, like Grey Talon and Holliday’s quests for revenge, who they are at their core is different. You have a sense that most of these characters have heard of each other enough for interesting character dynamics to occur. For instance, The Lash is an infamous fighting pit champion known for being “An Asshole,” so much so that it’s the only backstory line in his bio. He is hated by everyone except a snake lady named Vyper. She is a two-bit criminal who is both the most pathetic excuse for a person and the funniest character in the cast. With an already extensive cast in the base game, this new batch had their work cut out for them.

The Ratking was the first character to be voted in by the fan base. He is a loud, boisterous rat with a hatred for humans, looking to take over Long Island, even if it means killing every human living there. Unlike the other characters released, Ratking has some history before the City Never Sleeps update. He was a rumored character ever since the previous major update, “Old Gods New Blood,” last year. Fans speculated after finding things like rat traps inside the hideout, claiming that the next character would be a rat-based hero. One user, DragonRoIlZ, even made a concept post that represented what fans wanted from the character.

So, did the Ratking disappoint?

The answer is a resounding no! The Ratking is, as the name implies, king of the rats who is part of the tournament in order to get land. Specifically, he wants to own Long Island and turn it into the Kingdom of Rattania. The amount of love Ratking got from the development team helped make him a fan favorite.

For one of his abilities, he throws a swarm of rats. Every time you use a rat swarm, it pulls a voice line from one of his 126 different lines. From Gumdrop and her polycule to Carl 2, the Ratking knows the name of all subjects he throws out with that ability. I was in the camp of people who loved the crumbbum spewing, human-hating rat.

However, he was sickeningly overpowered when he was first released. The Ratking, fittingly, was a frontliner that ruled the battlefield. His ultimate ability “Rule, Rattania” was and still is a powerhouse. The ability gives allies in a radius intense resistances while lowering yours. At his peak, the Ratking had a 91% pick rate in ranked. Even with the nerfs, he still holds the highest pick rate in the game as of writing, unlike the next character whose nerfs gutted them.

Winner of the three-way deadlock for second place, Baba was the second character released. She has many names: Leader of the SoHo Coven, The Central Park Bench Lady and the lady who (allegedly) threw a brick at the mayor. She is crabby, makes constant references to her mortal enemy Mildred and has intense New York pride. The community fought hard to get her into second place. In every lobby, I would see a message of someone doing a parody of Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody,” saying, “BABA OOOO~.” With the ability to make her walking park bench grow massive legs, the ultimate ability to turn people into pigeons, and the sheer comedy of her voice lines, Baba became a unique character that fans loved.

What was not nice about Baba was her kit. Baba was a spirit tank, meaning she resisted most of the cast’s abilities. The combination of movement tech she was not supposed to have, and an ability that sapped your strength even when she died, turned her into an oppressive force you could not get away from. With the highest win rate at the time of writing, she was targeted with sweeping nerfs.

These nerfs gutted her bullet resistance and weakened her spirit resistance. Alongside this, they removed her movement tech. These nerfs, despite making budding Baba mains cry, were necessary for the game’s health. However, this next character released was sad for a different reason.

Solomon was the third released hero for City Never Sleeps, an old chess player who spends his days at the park watching people and enjoying life. He takes part in the ritual because he does not want the power of the patrons to fall into the wrong hands. While Ratking was the most anticipated and Baba was the most cheered for, Solomon had the most attention to detail. For instance, his primary fire consists of shooting chess pieces. If you increase your magazine size, he plays different chess games. The resulting “reloaded” board recreates a different infamous checkmate. It brought many in the chess community who would not have played Deadlock otherwise.

The inclusion of Solomon inspired GothamChess to play the game, a top 0.1% chess player. He even has one of his games referenced in Solomon’s reload animation. Alongside this, many memes spawned from Solomon’s chess gimmick. Even if it pained them to get rid of the funniest, if not toxic, poster you could place on the map, those who wanted Solomon were determined to get him released. You could not view a Reddit thread without seeing Solomon call all 8.7 trillion of his pawns.

Despite how easy it is to love him, what’s not easy is playing him. Solomon has a decently high skill floor. Managing your bishops and learning when to pull your allies out of danger can be difficult to optimize. When playing him, you feel like a master strategist manipulating the field to your advantage. However, I am a simple man who likes to dive into the enemy and hit buttons until they die.

Although I don’t mesh well with his gameplay, he has grown to be one of my favorite characters personality-wise. He is patient, wants the best for people, and has the strength of character to threaten a notorious criminal like Seven to his face. He is down to earth and level-headed, unlike hero number four.

…And if you were playing him, your enemies truly did have an advantage. Deadman Danny is a salesman and test dummy for Fairfax Industries, the main company behind the Occult Industrial Complex. He truly believes in what he is selling, and thus EVERYONE hates him. Even the kind-hearted and patient Solomon absolutely loathes being around him during conversations.

Deadman Danny worships CEO Maxamillian Fairfax like a god and devotes his unnatural life in hopes of earning Fairfax’s recognition. Danny has died so many times that even the nature of his undeath is under a non-disclosure agreement. He is taking part in the ritual for that reason. Strapped in a soul-powered jetpack named the Chimera Mark 1 made by fellow cast member Maggie McGinnis, he is determined to win and sell a few jetpacks along the way.

Unlike his fellow occultists, the community loved this figurehead of late-stage capitalism. I absolutely adored him, even when all we had of him was a splash photo of a skeleton in a jetpack. However, he was one of the weaker characters on launch (pun intended).

His kit revolves around self-damage and charging deep into the enemy team when your jetpack overheats. Despite being given that kit, he was given some of the lowest HP scaling in the game. Everyone was complaining about how weak he was after the first day. That changed the next day when he got sweeping buffs. Now, Deadman Danny is in a solid state.

With a depth of movement unlike most of the occultists we have seen in-game and that dance between dive-bombing enemies and escaping without punishment, Deadman Danny has become one of my favorite heroes.

To the community’s surprise, Violet squeaked ahead of Nurse Harrow for the spot of 5th Deadlock character. Violet is an art student who wants the world to see her works. Her powers let her control ink, but otherwise she is a normal figure in Deadlock’s cast. This has led to some controversy in the community, with some seeing her as a flat character that was out of place. Despite the polarized reactions regarding her character, her kit has been generally well received. She has depth thanks to her ability to paint structures, her stun that gives her a buff if it lands and her infinite slide ability.

I think she’s neat, if not my kind of character. In my opinion, we need someone more grounded to contrast with the skeleton with a soul-powered jetpack and a bourgeois widow with a demonic hand that tells her to kill, named Lady Geist. She does have her fair share of bugs and annoyances. From invisible walls that can stun you on the zipline to stacking guided shots to create what the community dubs “Hollow Purple,” she needs some of the kinks to be ironed out. Violet, all in all, has been a polarizing character for her personality, but this last character more than made it up to the fans.

Last, but certainly not least, Nurse Harrow joins the fray. She is a nurse at the possession ward who uses umbral magic to heal her patients at her own expense. This pain could cause her to lose her sanity like many before her. Her wish for the partitions is simple: Give her the power to cure everyone in New York without succumbing. Harrow is a no-nonsense person.

Despite her cold demeanor, she has a depth of care to the point that she remembers every patient she has helped. Harrow, akin to Solomon, is a support character. Instead of a strategist controlling the battlefield, Harrow is a healer. With the ability to switch to healing shots, buff allies and an ultimate that will leave all the foes running, Harrow is a high priority in team fights.

Despite being last, Nurse Harrow had a dedicated fanbase. 22,194 players exclusively voted for Harrow, with one person clocking in at exactly 1,000 votes for her. A notable fact about this group is that they had the highest win rate of the voter base. I was not interested in Harrow compared to the rest of the cast. However, getting my hands on her has shown me how wrong I was. Nurse Harrow is an interesting character to play. And though I haven’t been able to play with her as long as the rest of the cast, I believe that she will become one of my favorites.

In my opinion, the City Never Sleeps update was a massive success. Not only has the game reached its all-time peak player count, but each hero added something special. Despite the issues with their balance, each character fits into the world neatly. The community is growing at a rapid rate despite the game being in open alpha. With the final character, we got some interesting numbers regarding this cycle of heroes. Over 110 million votes were cast during the event. This is a significant increase from the 60,776,963 votes for the Old Gods New Blood update. The community is blossoming, and it will only grow bigger when the game finally releases in full.