Over 110 million votes were cast throughout the course of the event.
Nurse Harrow has stepped into Deadlock, becoming the sixth and final hero to join the game and bringing the successful City Never Sleeps hero release campaign to a close.
This record-breaking update saw the release of fan-favourite Rat King, followed by an upset victory for Baba over Solomon, before rounding off with Deadman Danny, Violet, and finally, Nurse Harrow.
As with the previous update, Valve shared several voting trivia to wrap up the campaign.
A total of 110 million votes were cast over the course of the event, nearly double the 60.8 million votes recorded during the previous Old Gods, New Blood update. While Nurse Harrow came last, over 22,000 players voted exclusively for her, with one player even casting 1,000 votes in her favour.
Of all the hero match-ups, Baba and Solomon had the closest contest. The ol’ granny Baba defeated the viral chess master Solomon by just 0.5% of the votes, becoming the second hero after Rat King to join the fight.
Deadlock
Release date: TBA (playable via invite-only access)
Platform: PC (via Steam)
Developer: Valve
What are Nurse Harrow’s abilities in Deadlock?
Nurse Harrow is as sharp as her weapon looks. Her unorthodox practices on her patients at Marble Hill Possession Ward are said to be effective, and she will be bringing them to The Cursed Apple to aid in battle.
With a syringe in one hand and a large bag in the other, Nurse Harrow brings a powerful set of support abilities to the battlefield. These range from draining enemies with her jar of leeches to healing through her syringe shots, and unleashing an area-of-effect (AoE) attack using her mysterious bag.
Here are Nurse Harrow’s abilities:
Leech Therapy–Throws a jar of leeches that attach to enemies, dealing Spirit damage over time and eating away at the duration of enemy buffs. Once the leeches have finished feeding, you can collect them to heal yourself and gain permanent regeneration and fire rate.
Wretched Vapors–Cracks a vial on herself or an ally, triggering a buff followed by a crash. During the rush, the buff increases the speed of all actions and temporarily numbs all incoming damage. Once the effect wears off, the crash slows all actions and applies the delayed damage, along with additional damage.
Healing Needles–Switches her weapon’s bullets into healing shots. Dealing damage restores healing charges, while each collected leech gradually replenishes them.
Lurking Terrors–Opens her bag to unleash its horrors, dealing Spirit damage over time to enemies in front of her. Enemies who look up at her cannot use stamina or movement abilities and gradually build up terror. At maximum terror, they flee in fear. Each collected leech increases the duration of the fear effect.
An end to the City Never Sleeps campaign
As the least popular hero in the City Never Sleeps line-up, Nurse Harrow also drew a slightly lower peak player count at launch, breaking the upward trend established by her predecessors.
When the update first launched, Deadlock soared to 228,086 concurrent players, breaking the long-standing record set when the game first opened its playtests to the public. Rat King pushed the record even higher, adding a few hundred players to the peak.
From then on, Deadlock’s all-time peak player count continued to climb with each hero release, rising to 236,730 with Baba before reaching over 262,000 with Solomon. Deadman Danny continued the upward trajectory, drawing an additional 7,000 players to the game at its peak.
Violet’s release last week finally saw Deadlock break the 300,000-player milestone, peaking at 303,347 concurrent players. Unfortunately, Nurse Harrow could not reach the same heights, although more than 279,000 players flocked to the game during her launch–an impressive figure in its own right.
Valve’s MOBA-shooter hybrid has already put up phenomenal numbers despite remaining unreleased and technically still being in “early development”. Deadlock regularly ranks among Steam’s most-played games, attracting an audience comparable to those of established titles such as PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS, WARDOGS, and AION 2.
