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Artifact 2.0 won’t sell you cardsA dramatic turnaround
A dramatic turnaround
Artifact’s developers have given up on selling people cards. When the closed beta for Artifact 2.0 kicks off, you’ll have to earn every single card through playing - no market, no packs. Stingy pricing was just about the only thing holding the game back for me, so, hurray!
It’s part of a big relaunch. Valve have also mentioned some changes they’re making to the game itself, including allowing “players to access all three lanes at once”. That’s pretty wild, too.
Not selling cards at all is an unusual move, but probably a wise one. Iwasn’t the only onewho thought the game massively favoured those who splurged, at least in constructed play. Valve say they “have some ideas about what we’d like to sell, but none of them are cards/packs.”
Intheir blog post, Valve also say they’re working to make the game more accessible. The biggest change, they say, “is zooming out to allow players access to all three lanes at once. The majority of effects still work on individual lanes so they still maintain their identity, but it’s less likely that a player will get shut out in the same way they used to.”
I’m not completely sure this is what that means, but it sounds like we’ll be playing cards onto lanes in any order we like, rather than going from left to right. That’s huge. Carefully weighing up how much to commit to each lane is central to Artifact, and I’m intrigued to see how that shifts if and when players can flit between lanes.
When Valve are ready to start letting players into the closed beta, they’ll initially prioritise people who bought the game before today. They say they’ll “trickle out invites” as they head towards an open beta.
I hope this second attempt is met with success. Artifactdeserved more.
