Deadlock has a new hero, and a new high-water mark to go with her. Valve added Violet, a painter who turns her art into weapons, in an update posted on October 16, and player counts for Valve’s hero shooter climbed to a fresh peak the same day.
Meet Violet
Valve’s “Paint the Town” announcement on Steam describes Violet as an artist who “approaches the ritual with the same precision she does her art.” Her kit is built around four abilities:
- Living Ink empowers her bullets and draws “mere inspiration into reality.”
- Flow State lets her ink glide toward danger to deal damage, or away from it for a quick getaway.
- Still Life captures enemies’ likeness, locking them into her work.
- Abstract Landscape, her ultimate, surrounds Violet and nearby players with what Valve calls “her biggest and most ambitious piece yet.”
Violet is part of the City Never Sleeps update, which has been rolling out heroes picked through community voting. Valve says the final hero in that run, Nurse Harrow, joins on Tuesday, October 20 at 2 p.m. PDT (4 p.m. CT), which it calls the culmination of the update.
A new peak
The steady stream of heroes has been very good for Deadlock’s numbers. Third-party tracker SteamPeaks lists a new all-time peak of 303,347 concurrent players on October 16. The previous big surge came with the chess-themed hero Solomon, which RCG covered in Deadlock’s Chess Hero Solomon Pushes It Past TF2’s Peak.
Deadlock is still technically in early development and has no store price, yet it now regularly pulls player numbers that most finished hero shooters would envy. Valve has kept the cadence tight this fall, and with Nurse Harrow landing just days after Violet, the update has one more chance to push that record even higher before the City Never Sleeps run wraps up.
Violet is live in the PC game now, giving players a few days to learn her kit before the final hero arrives next week.
