You probably remember Artifact as the game that Valve so desperately wanted to work but despite all the hours and manpower thrown at it, the Dota 2-themed card game just didn’t make the cut. It didn’t take long after launching the game that Valve had already struggled to not only retain players but to find them at all as the pricing model turned most people away from could have worked beautifully as a free-to-play title. Hell, Artifact was designed by Richard Garfield, the creator of Magic: The Gathering. That should surely have been enough to draw in players and yet in May of 2020, Valve announced that it was redeveloping Artifact. The 2.0 version would hopefully appeal to a broader audience who wanted to stick around and play the game… but that’s just never really the case with these things, right? Ten months after the announcement of Artifact 2.0, Valve has confirmed that it’s now pulling the plug on its card game.
“While we’re reasonably satisfied we accomplished most of our game-side goals, we haven’t managed to get the active player numbers to a level that justifies further development at this time. As such, we’ve made the tough decision to stop development on the Artifact 2.0 Beta,” reads the blog post announcement released by Valve. Artifact 1.0 and 2.0 will now go free for everyone and the 10 players still enjoying Artifact 1.0 will gain every card in the game as well. It’ll also have a small tweak in the name; Artifact Classic is what the original game will now be called. Feels like you need to earn the title “Classic” but sure.
On the other hand, Artifact 2.0 has been renamed to Artifact Foundry and all the cards in the game can now be unlocked and earned in-game. “Players gain access to cards by playing the game. All cards are earned this way; no cards or packs will be for sale and Artifact Foundry cards are not marketable,” says Valve.
“We’re grateful to all Artifact players, and particularly to those who were able to help us tune and refine what would become Artifact Foundry. The team feels this is the approach that best serves the community. We’re proud of the work we’ve done on both games and excited about delivering them to a much larger audience of gamers,” concludes the announcement.
Last Updated: March 5, 2021
