Overview
- Solomon went live in Deadlock’s City Never Sleeps beta on the weekend of October 10–11, 2026 and brings a chess‑themed kit that turns teammates and summoned pieces into movable chess tokens.
- His abilities include placing and moving giant pieces (Setup Bishop, Rook Battery, Kingside Knight) and an ultimate called Develop Queen that deals large area spirit damage and can execute low‑health foes.
- Solomon’s wooden board serves as his ammo counter and rearranges each time he reloads; community researchers matched many reload layouts to real historical chess positions and some classic traps.
- The number of pieces on Solomon’s board can vary from 8 up to 32 depending on items and in‑game buffs, which changes the reload configurations players see and how many projectiles he has.
- The City Never Sleeps update coincided with a surge in Steam peak players that surpassed Team Fortress 2’s all‑time peak for the title, and early play has mixed high praise for design with reports of bugs and steep balance questions as Valve prepares more hero releases.