Valve Is Planning a Big Artifact Reboot

Valve is working on a reboot of Artifact, the ill-fated card game which didn't receive a positive reception when it launched last year. It was previously announced that Valve would be heading back to the drawing board to work on the game and make it a better experience for players after people expressed frustrations with things like the game's economy, but new details have indicated the changes may be larger than previously expected. The reboot is reportedly being referred to as "Artifact 2" within Valve, though it's unclear what that means for the scope of the game and its future.

GamesRadar reported on the latest details of Artifact which were included in the latest issue of Edge Magazine. Edge spoke to Gabe Newell, the founder and CEO of Valve, who referred to the game as "an interesting failure" that surprised the team with how poorly it was received.

Artifact: Under Constructionhttps://t.co/QvJaieH5gf

— Artifact (@PlayArtifact) March 20, 2020

It was said that the reboot is internally referred to as Artifact 2, but it's not known whether this will be a sequel or simply an overhaul and revival.

"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," Newell said in Edge Magazine. "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."

If you head to the game's page for its events, you'll notice there's a new post there shared this week that says the game is "Under Contruction." It thanks people for their interest in the game and says people should expect to see some changes soon.

"First off, we wanted to say thanks for all of your tweets, emails and posts," the update says. "The continued interest in Artifact has been encouraging, and we sincerely appreciate all of the feedback!

"You might notice some changes soon – we are starting tests on our systems and infrastructure. This shouldn't impact live Artifact but we wanted to give you a heads up."

One of the biggest complaints players had with the game was the economy system which governed what cards players had. Players quickly found out that the game could be pretty expensive after paying the initial purchase price.

Expect to see more from Valve on its plans for Artifact as progress on the reboot continues.