Deadlock Season 1 extended to November 5, with the next season starting right after

Update, October 6 (evening): Valve pushes the end of Beta Season 1 back to Thursday, November 5 at 2 pm Pacific, and confirms the next season will start right after. It is the second period the game files had planned since September 29; only its date changed.

2026-10-06

Update, October 6 (evening). Valve confirmed it while announcing Baba: Beta Season 1 is extended to Thursday, November 5 at 2 pm Pacific (11 pm in Paris), and “the next season starts immediately after.” Build 6757, shipped four minutes later, moved the switch between the file’s two periods to that date. So nothing changes this Thursday, October 8: everything below, new leaderboard included, now applies to November 5. Our Season 1 hall of fame will be published on November 6.

On September 11, we wrote that Beta Season 1 would not end on October 7, as Valve had announced, but on Thursday, October 8 at 2 pm Pacific. That date still holds. What changed is what comes next: ranked doesn't stop Thursday. It starts again right away.

What the file says

The ranked seasons file describes each season through "intervals": a start date, an end date and a leaderboard ID. Until September 29, Beta Season 1 had only one. The City Never Sleeps build added a second one, without a word in the patch notes.

Period 1 runs from July 30 to Thursday, October 8 at 2 pm Pacific, with leaderboard no. 1001. Period 2 starts at the same second, with a new leaderboard, no. 1002, and ends on January 1, 2028. That date is a placeholder: more than two years out, it simply means no end has been set. The name doesn't change, it is still "Beta Season 1", and neither do the rules: eight calibration matches, 300 base points per match, solo or duo.

What changes Thursday

The public leaderboard starts over. A new ID means a new board: the top 1,000 of each region, the one you check in game and on our leaderboard page, will be empty at 2:01 pm Pacific.

Your rank, very likely, too. In the game's data, each player's ranked progress (points, rank, highest rank, leaderboard position) is stored period by period. And since July the game has had a command to "start" a period, refused if you haven't played enough matches or unlocked enough heroes. That is how everyone entered ranked this summer. Everything suggests you will go through it again Thursday, with a new calibration. We will check in game as soon as period 2 opens.

What doesn't change

What you earned stays earned. Valve wrote it on July 30: the highest rank reached during the season is recorded in your history. The data also keeps a highest rank for each period. So there is still nothing to protect Thursday: there are just two days left to climb.

The time doesn't move either: Thursday, October 8 at 2 pm Pacific, 5 pm Eastern, 10 pm in London.

What we are doing

When the in-game board starts over, period 1's final standings will disappear with it. We have been taking snapshots since late September: all five regional leaderboards, every evening, then every thirty minutes from Thursday morning Pacific time until the switch. On Friday we will publish period 1's hall of fame, in its last state before the reset.

The countdown on our home page and leaderboard page now announces a new leaderboard, not the end of the season.

What we don't know

Whether ranks restart from zero or from a reduced rank. Whether there will be rewards for period 1. Whether Valve will one day call what follows "Season 2". None of this is in the files, and Valve hasn't said a word about it.

We own our part too: our monitoring watched the season end date, and it didn't move. It was the rest of the file that changed, and we only noticed it while preparing this week.

Methodology. `game/citadel/pak01_dir/scripts/ranked_seasons.vdata`, `season_1` section: interval 1 (start 1785430800, end 1791493200, leaderboard 1001) and interval 2 (start 1791493200, end 1830326400, leaderboard 1002), added by build 6711 on September 29, 2026 (SteamDatabase/GameTracking-Deadlock repository). Per-period progress and the start command read from the game's protocol definitions (`citadel_gcmessages_client.proto`), present since build 6652 on July 30. Times converted from UTC.