After much effort to reboot Artifact, Valve has decided to end all development on the virtual trading card game (TCG).
A virtual TCG based on DOTA 2, Artifact was launched in 2018 designed by Richard Garfield, renowned creator of Magic: The Gathering. The original game was supposed to be rebooted by the newer version known as Artifact 2.0 Beta which the team has apparently been working on “in earnest” about a year and a half ago.
Artifact was off to a good start even when Blizzard’s Hearthstone was at its peak popularity. However, the game eventually toppled over after its player count fell “pretty dramatically” and the game was “deep, but burdened by its marketplace.”
The team has now announced that both Artifact 2.0 Beta (renamed Artifact Foundry) and the original Artifact Classic will be available for free. Both games will no longer receive any further gameplay updates. Though Artifact Foundry is an unfinished product with missing art and polish, the core gameplay is still there.
The final release and changes to both games that came with the news will allow players to gain access to every card completely free. However, finding cards is probably a problem minuscule to finding players in the game.
Until today the game has a tremendous amount of negative reviews on Steam and it will probably stay that way forever.
If you hate the game but still can’t get over your love for DOTA, check out the new animation DOTA: Dragon’s Blood that will be streaming on Netflix soon. At the same time, Richard Garfield is working on his next card game, Roguebook, hoping to reclaim his magic touch.
Zheng Yi is perpetually looking for the Time Stone to juggle his love for toys, anime, comics, gaming and photography. He probably needs the Space Stone next for his collection…
Gerald
