Nurse Harrow is live in Deadlock. Valve released the support hero on October 20 at 2 p.m. PDT, and she closes the book on City Never Sleeps: she is the sixth and final hero of the update, and the last to arrive through the community vote that set the release order. Valve marked the occasion with the vote’s final statistics — more than 110 million votes cast across the event, and one player who voted for Harrow exactly 1,000 times.
At a glance
Release: Nurse Harrow went live October 20 at 2 p.m. PDT, the last of six City Never Sleeps heroes
Role: support. Her kit is Leech Therapy, Wretched Vapors, Healing Needles and the ultimate Lurking Terrors
The vote: more than 110 million votes cast; the closest race, Baba vs Solomon, was decided by nearly 0.5%
Release order, all chosen by players: Rat King, Baba, Solomon, Deadman Danny, Violet, Nurse Harrow
Status: Deadlock is still in development on Steam, with no release date announced
Six heroes, released in the order players picked
City Never Sleeps landed on September 29 as one of the biggest updates in Deadlock’s short public life: a reworked New York map, a roaming merchant called the Broker, a shop and HUD overhaul — and six new heroes whose release order Valve refused to fix in advance. Instead, players voted in the pregame lobby across three weeks, two heroes a week, on Tuesdays and Fridays at 2 p.m. PT. Votes from players on the winning team counted double, and a player’s first win of the day doubled their voting power again.
The order the votes produced was Rat King on October 2, Baba on October 6, Solomon on October 9, Deadman Danny on October 13, Violet on October 16 and Harrow last on October
20. That completes the set: three weeks after the update began, every City Never Sleeps hero is now playable.
The heroes were the headline act, but the update underneath them was just as large. Each lane of the New York map got new visuals and new Haunts themed to its district — jars of pickles, books, trash bags and barrels among them — and the back alleys were rebuilt as distinct districts of their own. The Broker, the roaming merchant, sells upgrades that pair every buff with a debuff to weigh against it. Around the edges, Valve redrew the health bars and ally indicators, cleaned up the event feed and rebuilt the shop around crafting a build.
A support whose healing comes with side effects
Harrow works at the Marble Hill Possession Ward, and Valve’s own description calls her methods unorthodox. Leech Therapy throws a jar of leeches at oncoming enemies; they attach, drain health and energy, then crawl back to deliver what they collected. Wretched Vapors cracks open a vial to possess her allies with a powerful boost of effectiveness — with side effects Valve warns about for when the vapors wear off. Healing Needles loads her syringe to inject medicine directly into teammates, and her ultimate, Lurking Terrors, opens her bag and releases everything captured inside, sending enemies running for cover.
Notably, Valve’s announcement prints no damage, healing or cooldown numbers for any of it — as with the five heroes before her, the exact tuning is left for players to discover in matches. Her parting line in the post is “Trust me, I know best,” which about sums up the design: a support who helps her team and unsettles everyone else.
The vote produced some remarkable numbers
Valve’s closing statistics are the real headline. More than 110 million votes were cast over the event. The closest contest was Baba against Solomon, decided by a difference of nearly 0.5%. Only 847 players voted in every round and backed the eventual winner every time, while 36,236 players voted in every round and never picked a winner once. Dedication had a face, too: 22,194 players voted exclusively for Nurse Harrow, one of them casting exactly 1,000 votes for her — and Valve notes her voters consistently held a higher win rate than every other hero’s voters.
Still unreleased, still one of Steam’s biggest games
All of this is happening inside a game Steam still lists as in early development with its release date to be announced, accessible by invite rather than an open store launch. That has not slowed it down: Deadlock sat fifth on Steam’s most-played chart on October 21, and City Never Sleeps has just given its players six new heroes, a reworked map and a community event they visibly took seriously. Whether Valve runs another hero vote is unannounced.