Artifact, the collectible card game developed by Valve, was sent back to the drawing board last year due to it failing to retain players, with the company saying it represented the "discrepancy between our expectations for how one of our games would be received and the actual outcome."
Now, with another game under its belt and a whole year later, Valve is back to announce another beta period that aims to revitalize the game with major changes to the gameplay, monetization, new player experience, and other areas. The current roadmap for this new beta was detailed by Valve as follows:
- Test boring stuff
- Trickle out invites, starting with players of the original release (ramping up similar to Dota 2)
- Work on the Beta, eventually transitioning to an open beta
- Leave Beta (hopefully quicker than Dota 2)
Detailing some of the changes, Valve said cards won"t be purchasable anymore, with them only being unlocked by playing, resolving stacked deck scenarios. Valve will be looking at other ways to monetize the game. On the gameplay side, players will be able to zoom out and access all three lanes at once. Moreover, there will be a new draft mode named Hero Draft to let players get a "taste of constructing decks without all the pressure."
Cards, decks, stats, and other elements from the old Artifact won"t be carried over to this new version, as individual cards will have gone through changes or removed entirely, making them invalid.
The Artifact Beta 2.0 will be using an entirely new executable over the current version, and the beta invites will be given out to individual accounts using a "mostly random" selection. Valve will be revealing more information about this process later.