Mechanic
The Cursed Apple gets a major map and Haunt makeover, a temporary Corrupted-item merchant, six upcoming heroes, and extensive HUD, communication, accessibility, settings, and testing-tool updates.
Official release: September 29, 2026. These notes summarize Valve's [City Never Sleeps article]https://www.playdeadlock.com/cityneversleeps and its Additional Update Notes, together with the [Steam announcement]https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1422450/view/694273194214819790.
- The city receives a major visual overhaul, with refreshed main streets, back alleys, and side routes.
- The visitor's guide highlights Uptown, Times Square, Downtown, Umbria University, Central Park, the Brownstones, Stock Exchange, Seaport Dock, and Old Fairfax Factories.
- Four off-lane Districts offer distinct spaces to explore: Theater, Chinatown, Haunted Lot, and Plaza.
- Minimap labels now identify Lanes and Districts. Veils receive new rendering and VFX.
Illustrations: Valve's official update article. These are visitor-guide images, not calibrated match overlays.
- The Sunken Plaza is a high-risk reward area beneath Plaza District; descending into it reduces outside-world sound and stamina.
- Steam Vents provide invisibility and a small amount of regeneration while standing on them.
- Healing Snacks hidden around the map let observant players recover health.
- Nearby in-world timers show Haunt-camp and Midboss returns.
- The Topbar adds a Midboss respawn timer.
- These are new timer displays; Valve's article does not specify a universal first-spawn time or a complete camp schedule.
- Ability and item use begins immediately when the button is pressed, rather than waiting for the next activation window.
- Successfully parrying an objective no longer resets the Parry cooldown.
- The Parry cooldown is displayed near the reticle.
- Walkers stop firing their fireballs after dying.
- Walker attack and stomp ranges use dynamic indicators that appear as players approach, replacing permanent ground displays.
- Sinners Sacrifice has variable timings for earning the bonus.
- New hit-registration effects and cleaner self-barrier visuals improve combat readability.
- New health bars display player names, available Rejuvenator use, ultimate readiness, current health, stamina, and critical-health status.
- Haunt health bars communicate soul value and relative difficulty; objectives also receive updated health bars.
- Improved ally indicators make teammates easier to locate at a distance.
- Investment displays better communicate relative investment and breakpoints; stat, buff, and debuff displays clarify changing combat power.
- Shop stats preview the effects of purchases. Status buildup, effect durations, and targeting UI are easier to read.
- The Event Feed identifies the killing-blow item or ability, full target bounty and personal reward share, and Soul Bags.
- Damage-number settings include cumulative damage totals and other display options.
- The shop keeps the Kill Feed and incoming chat visible and lets players bring up the Scoreboard while shopping.
- Popular Items uses live player data to highlight frequently purchased items for the selected hero; tooltips show purchase frequency and typical game phase.
- Item Filters can combine desired stats and modifiers.
- Search, keyboard focus, scrolling, navigation, and shop settings are improved. Keys 1–6 switch shop tabs by default.
- The Build Browser receives better previews, build copy/paste, instant category resizing, fixes, and other quality-of-life improvements.
- Item art is updated.
- Cursor hints identify pingable UI elements. Minimap and Topbar wheels offer expanded callouts.
- Ability pings convey dynamic cooldown information, and a typing indicator shows when players are composing messages.
- New ping targets include Troopers, Haunts, Ziplines, Rift, Bridge Buffs, and the Shop.
- Shop-item pings communicate purchase intent or ownership.
- Enemy pings relay critical health, death state, and imminent respawns. Clustered minimap enemy pings report the number of enemies present.
- More than 15,000 ping lines are new or updated.
- Six heroes are announced for the upcoming release sequence: Baba, Deadman Danny, Nurse Harrow, Rat King, Solomon, and Violet. They are upcoming, not six immediately playable additions.
- Voting moves to the new Pregame lobby. The winning team's votes count double, and the first win of the day also grants double votes.
- The first hero release is announced for October 2. Subsequent releases are scheduled for Tuesdays and Fridays at 2:00pm Pacific Time, two heroes per week.
- Priority tokens become earnable through play starting with the first hero release. Campaign posters let players show their preferred candidate.
- Pregame conversations between new and existing heroes increase from more than 700 to 1,500; more than 10,000 non-ping voice lines are added.
- A dialogue player lets players browse Hero and Patron voice lines.
- Hero Light and Heavy Melee attacks receive new SFX, alongside other new or improved sounds and death, respawn, and killstreak music.
- New footsteps are added for Billy, Mina, Drifter, Silver, Victor, Venator, Apollo, Graves, Celeste, Doorman, Paige, and Rem.
- Older heroes receive animation updates, Hideout points-of-interest reactions, and VO response-rule fixes.
- Downward drop shadows replace sunlight-direction shadows, improving performance and character tracking.
- Dedicated settings cover visuals, audio, and controls, including enemy UI colors and customizable dialogue subtitles.
- Auto Move starts with a double-tap of Move Forward; pressing Move Forward or Move Back stops it.
- Auto Mantle works when moving forward or backward into ledges without pressing Jump.
- Auto Fire allows continuous shooting without holding Fire; pressing Fire stops or resumes it.
- Camera-shake reduction and reticle fill/border customization are added.
- Players receive notification when action is taken against someone they reported.
- A player reported and found to be abusing communications during a match is muted for the rest of that match and receives a 30-day communications ban.
- A postgame commends counter allows players to commend others back by clicking their hero.
- A postgame graph tracks collected permanent buffs; pickups also show their type above the hero in-world.
- Record, replay, loop, and share bot action sequences. Bots spawn facing the player.
- Combat logs break down damage events, damage types, and applied buffs/debuffs.
- Movement graphs track speed and crowd-control effects and support route testing.
- The DPS display records DPS and total damage; combat ends three seconds after the last hit, with results remaining until damage is dealt again.
- Tools support build comparisons, hero-state controls, map-spawn toggles, permanent buffs, camera lock, hiding UI/health bars, and detailed item-type information.
- Fine-tune target dummies, force-spawn objectives and other map entities, heal or kill a target under the cursor, and command bot actions on a loop.
- Bind testing actions such as no-clip to hotkeys. An ignore-player/speed-boost mode helps uninterrupted map navigation.
- The testing layout is reorganized and its options gain tooltips. Free shopping, menu pinning, and an unlocked cursor are available.
- Falloff guides show where weapon damage starts and finishes falling off and how much is lost at range.
- First crate and neutral spawns in Sandbox and Explore NYC occur at 5 seconds instead of 30; this does not describe normal-match first spawns.
- The Sandbox map includes the new objectives.
- A keybind map shows assigned and free keys/buttons; bindings can also be assigned by selecting a key. Previously non-bindable actions and more scroll-wheel bindings are supported.
- Share reticle/keybind setups as codes, preview a code before applying it, and undo applied changes. Reticles also have a dedicated single-reticle share code.
- Per-hero settings are easier to identify by holding TAB, and a Hero Selector makes comparison and adjustment easier.
- Reticle previews react to firing, zoom, accuracy, and abilities. Cursor size can be customized.
- Keyboard-layout recognition and Japanese, Chinese, and Korean IME support improve input. Audio-device changes update immediately in settings.
- Settings remember the last location, more settings support cloud saves and separate users on one PC, and changed values show default indicators and individual reset controls.
- Global resets can target all settings or selected groups. New-option markers, default-value slider pips, instant video previews, and improved color pickers are added.
- Spectator/replay hotkeys switch heroes; free cameras work while a replay is paused. Player-view toggling, camera position/pivot/FOV overrides, and adjustable fade opacity/distance are available.
- Health-number options cover self, enemies, and damaged allies; cumulative-damage display is customizable.
- Custom lobbies support eight spectators. Hideout camera options and keybinds allow a wider view.
- Patron spectating gains a new point of view; live-match minimap views for Hidden King, Archmother, and Target correctly show heroes and objectives.
- A HUD inset option is added for 21:9 displays.
- Engine code is updated to the latest Source 2 version, with anti-cheat, network prediction, rendering, and audio performance improvements.
- Trooper behavior, animations, and performance are improved.
- Localization is expanded, including Japanese kinsoku shori line breaks and localized Korean hero logos.
- Modifier-key chords and secondary-keybind modifier requirements are fixed.
Economy
- The Broker is a temporary merchant offering Corrupted versions of high-tier items.
- His first shipment arrives around 30 minutes, with a variable exact arrival time. Additional Corrupted Items can be collected on average every 15 minutes afterward; these are approximate availability windows, not a guaranteed reroll schedule.
- Corrupted items receive negative attributes from a predefined pool. Positive and negative values have some variability, but each item's attributes are the same for all players in that match.
- His stock is limited, and the announcement says he leaves when the first new hero arrives. No permanent availability or simulated rolls are implied.
- Tough Crates require Heavy Melee to open and award extra souls.
- Buff Containers replace the presentation of golden statues and add Spirit Resist, Bullet Resist, Ability Range, and Move Speed to the permanent-bonus pool.
- The Chinatown Bell Tower is a concentrated soul-reward hotspot; collecting its rewards rings the bell audibly across the map.
NPC
- Familiar neutral enemies are replaced by new creatures with distinct behaviors.
- The update introduces Specimen, Past Dues, Gutter Ghouls, Barrel Mimics, Stage Hands, Festival Spirit, Crabbage Pots, Shrooms, and Underhands.
- The official article presents their locations and themes; it does not provide a complete numeric ability or spawn-timing specification.
Street Brawl
- Players receive a Corrupted item after Round 5's item draft.
- Additional Street Brawl bugs are fixed.
Sinclair
- Numerous Sinclair bugs are fixed.
The Doorman
- Doorman bugs and abuse cases are addressed.
Yamato
- Path creation is fixed against targets solid to the player, including turrets, shrines, and objectives. The source names this Flying Strike; current game data calls the signature ability Flying Slash.
Graves
- Graves' gun can now destroy Venator's traps.
Development Outlook
Valve says core-game work remains the priority. Progression and hero/Hideout customization are in development; larger item redesigns and alternate game modes are being explored and may not ship. Midboss, Guardian, and Walker work remains planned, while older-hero remodels are expected gradually. These are development intentions, not features released by this patch.