Hero image: Deadlock’s Rat King. Image: Valve
The first of Deadlock’s six new heroes has crawled out of the sewers. The next one is up to you, and it lands on Wednesday morning in Australia.
The Rat King is playable now in Deadlock. He is the first hero from the City Never Sleeps major update, which Valve released on 29 September.
His kit is built around a front-line push. Scrap Grenade bounces into a fight and Swarm of Rats chases enemies down. Royal Pestments lets him shake off incoming damage, and the Banner of Rattania goes up in the middle of combat to inspire his team.
City Never Sleeps adds six heroes in all: Nurse Harrow, Deadman Danny, Baba, Solomon, Violet and the Rat King. They don’t arrive at once. The update page says two heroes release a week, on Tuesdays and Fridays at 2pm Pacific time. You vote on the order.
That puts the next hero in your game at 8am AEDT on Wednesday 7 October. That’s 7am in Brisbane and 5am in Perth. The Friday drop after that lands at 8am AEDT on Saturday 10 October.
Voting now happens in the new Pregame lobby. The winning team’s votes count double, so get your allies on the same pick. Your first win of the day also doubles your votes. Playing earns New Hero Priority Tokens, starting with the first hero release, and Campaign Posters let you show support for the hero you want next.
The update also brought the Broker, a merchant who swaps your high-tier items for Corrupted versions. His first shipment lands around the 30-minute mark, then roughly every 15 minutes after that. Every Corrupted item carries random negative attributes, the same for everyone in that game. The page said he would only be around for a few days, until the first new hero arrived. The Rat King is that hero.
The rest of the update is a visual overhaul of the map and its neutrals, new HUD information and accessibility settings. If you haven’t played since the matchmaking update split the queue into Standard and Ranked, there is a lot to relearn.
Deadlock is still in early development. The Steam page lists its release date as to be announced, and Valve’s update page says access is limited to friend invites from playtesters.
Source: Valve on Steam – Listen up, Crumbums! Your King is here, Valve on Steam – City Never Sleeps, Deadlock – City Never Sleeps, Steam – Deadlock