Haunts replaced neutral camps in the Sept 29 patch. Nine families across roughly 40 camps, three tiers, and the in-game respawn timer added this update.
Deadlock Haunts: Camps, Tiers and Soul Values
Neutral camps no longer exist in Deadlock. The City Never Sleeps update on September 29, 2026 replaced every neutral creep with Haunts: nine named families across roughly 40 camps, split into three tiers you read off eye colour, with a respawn timer now hovering over each camp you walk past. Every pre-patch farming route is invalid for the current build.
What Actually Changed on September 29
Official source: Deadlock — City Never Sleeps — Valve's update page, published with the patch, checked 2026-10-03.
Valve calls it "a massive visual update to the map and neutrals," and the map section says the neutrals "have been replaced by a variety of creatures with new behaviors." The new name is Haunts.
| Before September 29, 2026 | After, in the current build |
|---|---|
| One generic neutral creep family | Nine named Haunt families |
| Camps described by size only | Every camp carries a I / II / III difficulty tier |
| Tier inferred from health bars | Tier printed next to the name, with the soul value |
| No camp or boss timers | In-world respawn timer near camps, Midboss timer in the Topbar |
Two corrections first. The Midboss was not reworked — TheGamer's launch-day rundown notes the boss is untouched and the work comes later, matching Valve's own announcement listing Midboss, Guardians and Walkers as unfinished. And the camp rework is itself incomplete. Our City Never Sleeps breakdown covers the rest, plus the full Steam announcement.
The Nine Haunt Families and Where They Spawn
These nine names are Valve's own, from the family cards on the official page.
| Haunt family | Where it spawns | What Valve says about it |
|---|---|---|
| Specimen | Times Square, Broadway side | "a disembodied hand crawling on your kitchen floor" |
| Past Dues | Green Lane | "the pages of a book may serve better as a sleep aid" |
| Gutter Ghouls | Main city streets | dark thoughts humanity would rather bury, "given form" |
| Barrel Mimics | Main city streets | gunpowder invented "while on the search for an elixir of immortality" |
| Stage Hands | Theater District | "graceful bodies floating across the stage" |
| Festival Spirit | Theater District | souls "kindled with hopes and dreams" that turn violent |
| Crabbage Pots | Chinatown District | "there's a ritual going on outside. Something's in the water" |
| Non-edible Shrooms | Haunted Lot District | fungi plus demonic energy, "it starts to walk" |
| Underhands | Haunted Lot District | "grasping hands always find their ways into unexpecting pockets" |
IGN's write-up of the patch groups Gutter Ghouls and Barrel Mimics on the York stretch and the Specimens on Broadway, and notes each of the four Districts carries its own families.
Valve's update page names Blue Lane and Green Lane and never names the third. Any guide handing you three confident lane names is filling that gap with guesswork. Our lanes and Districts map guide separates what Valve named from what the community calls it.
Haunt Tiers: What the Eye Colour Means
Three tiers, and the tier drives a Haunt's health, its damage and the souls it pays. The tier prints next to the name in game, I weakest, III toughest — TheGamer reported that on launch day. The eye-colour shorthand comes from the third-party tracker Deadlock Labs: "40 camps now spawn 9 families of Haunts, each tied to its part of town. Eye colour tells the tier: teal I, yellow II, red III."
| Tier | Eye colour (tracker) | Camp size (community wiki) | What it drives |
|---|---|---|---|
| I | Teal | Small | Lowest health, damage and soul value; safe for any hero |
| II | Yellow | Medium | Mid everything; the standard rotation camp |
| III | Red | Large | Highest of the three; do not start it low on health |
Deadlock Labs says tier I is teal; the community wiki describes small Haunts as having green eyes. Both are third-party, and Deadlock has published no colour table. Read the Roman numeral in the HUD instead.
Roughly 40 camps is the Deadlock Labs figure, and it is the only place you will find that number — Valve has not published a camp count.
Reading a Haunt Camp In Game
Three official additions remove the guesswork:
- More Haunt Information — "See the soul value and comparative difficulty of NPC's."
- Objectives get 'em too! — "Gain a better understanding of just how tanky those guys are." The same readout now covers bosses, which is how you judge whether to start the Midboss.
- In-World Respawn Timers — "You can now see when Haunt camps or Midboss will respawn when you are near their spawn area."
That last one answers "how long until the camp is back": stand at a cleared camp and the countdown appears over the spawn point, so you no longer memorise a timer to route a rotation. The Topbar Midboss Timer shows Midboss respawn at all times, which makes the second half of a rotation easy to plan — see the Patron and objectives guide.
Three mechanics from the community wiki, community-sourced rather than official: Haunt souls go to every player who damaged the Haunt instead of dropping as collectable orbs, shooting a Haunt in the eye crits, and small camps hold three Haunts. So a four-stack can clear a small camp with nobody losing payout, and because the timer starts when the last Haunt dies, letting a teammate finish a camp you started often beats racing them.
Camp Respawn Timings: Community Numbers, In-Game Truth
Valve publishes no timing table. This is the tier table from the community wiki deadlock.wiki/Haunts, retrieved 2026-10-04:
| Camp tier | Health | Souls | Soul gain /min | Initial spawn | Respawn after last kill |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Small (I) | 129 | 41 | +0.44 | 2:00 | 1:25 |
| Medium (II) | 322 | 68 | +0.73 | 5:00 | 4:50 |
| Large (III) | 1133 | 181 | +1.95 | 8:00 | 5:35 |
Estimate, not fact: the wiki logs the September 29 rework without re-dating each figure, so those numbers may describe the old creeps. The in-game timer is the authority. The durable takeaway is the shape — tier III camps pay roughly four times tier I and take proportionally longer to return, so start long rotations early.
How to Plan a Haunt Route Now
Rotate by District, not by the camps you memorised. The lanes and Districts map guide has the layout and the two new area objectives beside the good camps.
Keep two systems separate. Camps pay out directly on damage; soul orbs are the contested part of the economy, which is where denying and the orb-confirmation problem come in — both in the souls economy guide. And whether you can safely start a tier III camp is a positioning question, covered in the movement guide. If you just got an invite and have not finished a match, start with the beginners guide — Haunt farming is a second-match habit.
What Valve Has Not Published
No camp count (the 40 figure is community-sourced), no soul-value table, no per-tier health or damage numbers, no official tier-to-eye-colour rule, no third lane name. A page giving all five as clean official numbers is laundering a tracker. The honest reference is the nine family names plus what the HUD prints; everything else read live.
FAQ
Are the old neutral camps gone? Yes. The September 29, 2026 update replaced them with Haunts — Valve's page says the neutrals "have been replaced by a variety of creatures with new behaviors." Pre-patch routes do not carry over.
How many Haunt camps are there? Roughly 40, per the Deadlock Labs tracker. Valve has never published a count, so treat it as a community estimate.
How do I tell which tier a Haunt is? The tier prints next to its name in the HUD, I weakest and III toughest, alongside the soul value. Teal, yellow and red is a third-party convention.
How long until a camp respawns? Stand near the spawn of a cleared camp and an in-world timer appears over it, counting from when the last Haunt in that camp died. It is new in this patch and the only source you need.
Do Haunt camps drop soul orbs? No. Community wiki reporting says Haunt souls go to every player who damaged the Haunt rather than dropping as orbs, which is why four players can clear a camp without anyone losing the payout.
What is a camp worth in souls? Valve publishes no reference table. The community wiki lists 41, 68 and 181 souls for small, medium and large camps, but that table was not re-dated after the rework — read the value off the HUD.
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