Deadlock reached a new all time concurrent player record following the release of the City Never Sleeps update.

Yesterday Valve released the massive City Never Sleeps update for Deadlock , which adds new heroes, updates the map and makes a ton of changes to the game. Following the update, players flocked to Deadlock , setting a new all time concurrent player record in the process.

Shortly after the City Never Sleeps update launched, the total concurrent player count peaked at 228,086 according to SteamDB , beating the previous record of 171,490 that was set way back in September 2024.

It’s a significant jump for Deadlock , which has been generally increasing its player numbers for most of this year. In 2025 Deadlock never peaked at more than 70,000 concurrent players, but every month of 2026 has seen it top that number, with the latest peak clearly significantly above that.

Of course, the patch is clearly the main reason for the massive spike, with players eager to jump into the new features and content. Perhaps the biggest change of the patch is the overhaul to the Deadlock map, which gets both visual and structural changes.

Visually each area of the map now has its own identity, adding way more variety to each sector and making the game look a lot more striking. Structurally the map has been expanded, with more tunnels to move around in and lots of changes to buildings and pathways, which will take some getting used to.

The other big addition is the reveal of six new heroes, which, much like the last round of heroes, will be released one by one based on fan voting. The new heroes are Nurse Harrow, Rat King, Solomon, Deadman Danny, Baba and Violet, with the Rat King and Baba being the most unique and thus, in my opinion, the ones that are most likely to launch first. The first hero will launch on October 2, with more releases set for each Tuesday and Wednesday.

The full patch notes also reveal a ton of other changes, with a lot of UI overhauls to things such as health bars and damage numbers. It really seems like this update is improving a lot of the smaller things in Deadlock , along with the big headline changes.

Deadlock may still be in its weird early access beta period but these numbers from this update, and the general growth of the player base of the past year are certainly positive signs for the game’s future. I haven’t touched Deadlock for some time, but this update might just be enough to get me back in and playing.