Valve's 'Artifact' Makes Changes to Card With Racist Implications

Earlier this week, Valve revealed another new card coming to its Dota 2-based card game, Artifact, dubbed "Crack The Whip."

Fast-forward to today, and it announced that it has changed the name of the card to "Coordinated Assault" following some interpretations that the card was a reference to slavery.

This card packs a big punch immediately and then keeps on punching. When you play Crack the Whip, it triggers once right after it’s played. If you play an Untested Grunt next to the whipped hero it will trigger again, and the Grunt will receive the bonus. pic.twitter.com/qXflFpdOZb

— Artifact (@PlayArtifact) September 26, 2018

Crack the Whip has been renamed to Coordinated Assault.

— Artifact (@PlayArtifact) September 28, 2018

For those out of the loop: upon reveal, parts of the Internet and pieces of the game's community took to the social media to talk about the card. Backlash was minimal, and beyond a handful of people, there wasn't particularly any demand that Valve change the name of the card, but it apparently spotted the concerns anyway and decided to address them.

There was never any assumption that it was an intentional reference to slavery, but simply an unfortunate overlook by the team at Valve. In other words, it wasn't as much pitchforks as it was simply confusion on how such a seemingly obvious allusion wasn't noticed.

Nonetheless, the name has been changed, but otherwise the rest of the card and its description is seemingly the same.

Beyond the above update, Valve has not provided any type of statement on the situation.

Artifact is poised to release on PC, next month, on November 28. Meanwhile, a mobile release is expected to arrive sometime the following year, 2019. Below, you can read more about the game, courtesy of an official pitch from Valve:

"Artifact is a digital card game coming from the makers of Dota 2 and Steam . A collaboration between legendary card game designer Richard Garfield and game and technology maker Valve (Dota 2, Steam), Artifact offers the deepest gameplay and the highest-fidelity experience ever seen in a trading card game. It features more than 280 cards in the shipping set, including 44 heroes."