Image: Valve

Valve moves in mysterious ways. The company still operates like a sealed black box, occasionally opening a window to catapult a fully-formed product. So far as we've seen (and I'm sure there's others), their free-to-play shooter/MOBA hybrid Deadlock is the only major game they're visibly working on, and clearly they're pouring a lot of energy into it. Case in point: The City Never Sleeps update, which rolled out yesterday evening, once again massively overhauling the game.

The main focus of this update is sprucing up the map itself. While stylized, compressed, and overrun with supernatural weirdness, New York is a much more distinct and lively place. The three main lanes have been clearly defined as Broadway (Mid), Greenwich (East), and York (West), each with a distinct look and three sub-zones. Each region also has its own unique enemies, replacing the old 'neutral' creatures. Broadway has escaped magical specimens, Greenwich has animated books guarding its libraries, while York has animated bags of trash and leaky barrels.

The mid-map areas between the lanes are now the Theater district (populated by haunted dancing puppets), Chinatown (carnivorous plants and animated festival lanterns), the Haunted Lot (mushroom people), and the Plaza District (little winged shadow-gremlins) - it's a real glow-up for the game. Valve clearly has a lot of artistic chops on top of their map design.

But the part with the most sauce has to be the six upcoming characters. As ever, an immediately likeable bunch of weirdos, although my favorites are Deadman Danny (a corporate-sponsored skeleton daredevil) and Baba (a sassy old Bronx witch), and I'm giving them my vote. As is standard for Deadlock, players put their vote in for which character will be released next in-game, this time in the pre-game lobby. Whoever wins the community's favor will be the first released on October 2nd, and winning your first match each day gives you a bonus vote, too.

The patch notes are so extensive that I'd be here all day if I tried to summarize it all. But a few highlights include an overhaul to player health bars, telling you a lot more about who you're shooting. There are tens of thousands (no, really) of new voice lines to keep character banter fresh, and a dialogue player so you can listen to everything out of the action. The shop interface has also been tuned up, and for the next couple of days, there's a mysterious wandering shopkeeper in-game offering to replace players' high-tier items with even more powerful but cursed variants with random disadvantages.

While free-to-play, Deadlock is currently not quite open to everybody. Not yet, at least. While not exactly an exclusive club, you'll need someone to vouch for you. In the game's main menu, there's an Invite button. Ask a friend who has the game to click it, and they'll be able to let you in the door, fully unlocking the game on your Steam account. Oh, and because Valve are just kinda weird, there's still no trailer for the game, so instead, have a listen to a few voice clips from the upcoming new characters: