The City Never Sleeps hero rollout in Deadlock is officially complete. Valve has added Nurse Harrow to the game, making her the sixth and final hero released through the community voting event that kicked off last month.
Valve announced her arrival on Tuesday (October 20th) in a Steam post titled "Shh... This Won't Hurt a Bit." The post introduced Harrow as a nurse from the Marble Hill Possession Ward whose methods are questionable but effective, and it signed off with her line, "Trust me, I know best."
Nurse Harrow's Abilities
Harrow is built around leeches, potions and a very unsettling bag. Valve's announcement describes her kit like this:
- Leech Therapy: She throws a jar of leeches that attach to enemies, draining their health and energy before crawling back to deliver their haul.
- Wretched Vapors: She cracks open a vial that gives an ally a powerful boost, though Valve warns of side effects once the vapors wear off.
- Healing Needles: She loads her syringe gun with shots that inject medicine directly into her teammates.
- Lurking Terrors: She opens her bag to release the horrors trapped inside, sending enemies running for cover.
The in-game descriptions add more detail. Leeches deal Spirit damage over time and eat away at enemy buffs, and once they finish feeding, Harrow can collect them to heal and gain permanent regeneration and fire rate. Wretched Vapors works as a rush followed by a crash, speeding up all actions and numbing incoming damage before slowing the target down and applying the delayed damage. Lurking Terrors stops enemies who look at Harrow from using stamina or movement abilities, and at maximum terror they flee in fear. Every collected leech also extends that fear duration, so her whole kit feeds into itself.
How City Never Sleeps Played Out
The City Never Sleeps update launched on September 29th with a major visual overhaul of the map and neutrals, HUD updates, accessibility options and six new heroes that players voted into the game one at a time. Rat King was the first to arrive, followed by Baba, Solomon, Deadman Danny, Violet and finally Harrow, with new heroes landing twice a week on Tuesdays and Fridays.
Valve wrapped up the event by sharing some fun voting stats:
- More than 110 million votes were cast over the course of the event.
- The closest matchup was Baba against Solomon, which was decided by a difference of nearly 0.5% of the votes.
- Only 847 players voted in every round and picked the eventual winner every time.
- On the other end, 36,236 players voted in every round and never once picked the winner.
- 22,194 players voted exclusively for Nurse Harrow, and one of them cast exactly 1,000 votes for her.
- Harrow voters consistently had a higher win rate than voters for every other hero.
That last stat is a fun one, considering she was the hero who had to wait the longest to make it into the game. Her most dedicated supporters can now finally play her.
What Comes Next For Deadlock
When City Never Sleeps launched, Valve used its announcement to share where development stands. The team said progression and hero and hideout customization are in the works, along with more speculative projects such as large item redesigns and alternate game modes that may or may not ship depending on playtesting. Valve also named the Midboss, Guardians and Walkers as areas it plans to focus on in upcoming updates, and said hero remodels will likely be worked on gradually.
There is also a more immediate date on the calendar. Valve has pushed the end of Deadlock's first Ranked season to Thursday, November 5th at 2 PM PDT, with the next season starting immediately after. That gives players a couple of weeks to climb with the new heroes before the reset.
Deadlock is still in early development and available on PC through Steam, where Valve continues to release regular balance patches alongside these larger content drops.
Are you picking up Nurse Harrow, and which City Never Sleeps hero has been your favorite so far?
Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.