Upon its initial release in 2018, Artifact failed to gain a devoted following. After the decline in active players, it seemed that Valve was no longer supporting the game. Streamers took advantage of this to exploit Artifact’s tag on Twitch, using it to stream pornography and copyrighted movies. But in a recent interview with Edge Magazine, Valve CEO Gabe Newell teased a “larger reboot” for Artifact.
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The developer followed up its initial announcement with a larger news post on Steam. The post revealed new details about the Artifact 2.0 beta, such as gameplay changes and its availability to players of the original game. However, the biggest change is that players will no longer be able to buy or sell cards in game. Valve hopes that this will make the game more accessible to newcomers and stop people from stacking their decks. The developer did add that it had other items that it would consider selling.
Ultimately, Valve’s decision to not sell cards seems like a smart move for the Artifact player base. While players will have to wait and see if the final product improves on the original’s flaws, the news post seems an encouraging sign that Valve has reflected on what went wrong with Artifact’s launch.
An Artifact reboot is in development for PC.
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Source: Steam News Hub
