HomeNews
Failed Dota 2 card game Artifact is preparing for a massive comebackSecond wind
Second wind
Valve are on something of a roll right now.Half-Life: Alyxis looking absolutely stunning ahead of next week’s release. WhileDota Underlords(and auto-battlers generally) might be on abit of a downturn, it’s hard to say it hasn’t done well for itself. Now that they’re back in full swing, it might be time for Valve to bring their dustiest skeleton out of the closet. Gabe Newell reckons it might be time for another shot atArtifact.
An attempt to translateDota 2into a collectable card game, Artifactwas put on indefinite holdthis time last year after player numbers took a near-immediate nosedive. Besides that one time folks usedArtifact’s Twitch category to stream porn, pirated movies and actual real-life murders, there’s been nary a peep from the three-lane card battler.
Like everyone else, I’d sort of imagined Valve had quietly swept their failed card game under the carpet. Not so, it seems. According to Valve head honcho Gabe Newell, there’s a concerted effort to “reboot” the Dota-themed card game
“Artifact was an interesting failure in its first go-round." Newell told Edge Magazine (via GamesRadar, “We were surprised. We thought that it was a really strong product.”
“We ran an experiment, we got a negative result, and now we need to see if we’ve learned anything from that, so let’s try again. And that’s what [the Artifact team] have been doing and that’s what they’re getting ready to release. Based on the reaction to it, what was wrong with the product? How did we get there? Let’s fix those things and take another run at it.”
Edge reports that this reboot is being described internally as Artifact 2 - but aren’t specific on whether this’d be a full-blown sequel or a complete do-over. I can’t say a sequel to a flop would go down too well. Newell’s right in saying, though, that this would need to be a significant reboot “to justify its existence to customers and to markets.”
Our Matt quite liked Artifact,hanging on ‘til the very endfor the game’s comfortable strategic multitudes. Even as someone who usually hates card games, I’m with him. A bad draw winds me up like nothing else, but Artifact’s three-lane plays and cross-board options gave its fights a broader, turn-based tactics feel that made the RNG nature of the deck felt easier to stomach.
Besides,Artifact’s soundtrack slapped hard.
I’d still love to see it make a comeback, someday. And with Valve on something of a roll right now, I’m holding out that they could pull it off
