Let me fill you in on Baba from Deadlock real quick: She is one of the six new heroes that dropped with the City Never Sleeps update, and she’s easily the weirdest of the bunch. Valve basically just went Cackling, Beady, Hexing, left us hanging. She’s this strange old-lady character, and honestly? I can’t stop thinking about her.
Big catch though: Baba isn’t playable yet. Valve hasn’t dropped her full ability kit and these six new heroes are rolling out slowly. We’re voting on who comes next, so her exact release date, abilities, weapon and role are still kinda up in the air.
All About Baba:
Who even is Baba?
She’s part of that City Never Sleeps crew with Nurse Harrow, Rat King, Solomon, Deadman Danny and Violet. They’re the six upcoming heroes whose order we’ll decide as a community, and yeah, she looks like a full-on old witch.
Valve’s three-word teaser is still the best official description we’ve got: Cackling. Beady. Hexing. That Hexing bit basically screams supernatural witch vibes, even if they haven’t given us a proper bio yet.
The community’s losing it over her look. From the Hideout silhouette and model, she’s just sitting on this walking park bench that has actual chicken legs, and there are pigeons everywhere. People are calling her mecha-grandma and the pigeon lady and I get it. That design alone is why everyone’s already obsessed before we can even play her.
When does she actually drop?
No confirmed solo release date. Valve’s letting us vote on the order of all six heroes. Two become playable each week. Tuesdays and Fridays at 2 PM Pacific, starting Friday, October 2, 2026. So Baba’s possible slots are:
October 2, October 6, October 9, October 13, October 16 or October 20.
Whatever date she gets depends entirely on how the votes go. There’s already a ton of campaigning for her on Reddit, and a lot of people want her early, but community polls don’t lock anything in. Until a voting round finishes, take any site that claims a hard date with a grain of salt.
Can I play her right now?
Nope. As of September 30, 2026, she’s still locked. The new characters are visible but you can’t pick them.
What are Her Abilities?
Valve hasn’t shown the full kit. Those three words are the closest thing to official clues. Hexing makes me think curses or magic, but anything past that is pure speculation.
People are already cooking up theories: debuffs, curses, pigeon vision stuff. Some people guess Beady might mean her pigeons act like vision tools. Others are convinced she’s a heavy debuff character. Same goes for all the wild claims floating around: Fun ideas, sure, but none of it is confirmed.
Is she based on Baba Yaga?
It feels intentional as hell, but Valve hasn’t flat-out confirmed it in anything I’ve seen. Players immediately linked her to Baba Yaga from Slavic folklore.
And then you look at Deadlock’s design: she’s perched on a wooden park bench that has chicken legs. It feels like they took the chicken-legged hut and turned it into something that fits their weird New York vibe, an old pigeon-feeding lady on a chicken-legged park bench. Add the name Baba and the Hexing tag, and yeah, it’s a pretty convincing connection.
Still, I can only say she appears inspired by Baba Yaga.
How Do I Vote for Her
If you want her sooner, jump into the new pregame lobby and vote. City Never Sleeps moved the hero voting there instead of the old Hideout setup. You pick which upcoming hero you want next, the winning team’s votes count double and there’s still a first-win-of-the-day bonus. This isn’t just a popularity contest, the results actually decide the release order for Baba and the other five.
They also added campaign posters for the new characters, which is cute. Baba’s already got people talking about her weird eyes, the pigeons, the bench and the possible folklore roots, even though none of that talk has given us her finished kit.
Baba is Strange
Baba is shaping up to be one of the strangest new characters in Deadlock, and Valve is deliberately keeping most of her gameplay under wraps.
What I can confirm: she’s one of the six City Never Sleeps heroes, she’s currently locked, her release order depends on community votes. Her elderly witch look, the pigeons and that walking chicken-legged bench have people making a strong Baba Yaga connection.
