The DOTA Spin-Off Game Valve Is Finally Giving Up On

On Thursday, Mar. 5, 2021, Valve finally gave up on Artifact 2.0. The Artifact Team made the announcement through a Steam Community Page blog post titled "The Future of Artifact."

According to the announcement, the original DOTA 2 spin-off card game Artifact lost players quickly after its November 2018 release. This prompted the team to begin work on Artifact 2.0, a reboot of the game. However, due to ever-dwindling active player numbers, the team "made the tough decision to stop development on the Artifact 2.0 Beta."

The news of this development halt surely comes as a disappointment to those who have been eagerly anticipating Artifact 2.0. However, there is a silver lining. Though Valve made it clear that Artifact 2.0 development has ceased and is not anticipated to begin again, its team members "recognize that both versions of Artifact still have players and still have value to the community," so much so that Valve is "opening both games up to make them available for free to everyone."

Both Artifact Classic and Artifact Foundry (the new name for what was originally the Artifact 2.0 Beta) are now officially free to play. Though Artifact Foundry "remains an unfinished product," Valve assures players that "most of what's missing is polish and art – the core gameplay is all there."

The announcement included details on final changes to Artifact Classic and what Artifact Foundry will be like. Basically, the devs made sure players understood that everything is completely free — no more card pack purchases or paid event tickets. However, if you've already put money into the game, you'll now be eligible for Collector's Edition upgrades, so the investment you made won't be for nothing.

Though Valve is generally known for long gaps between games, the titles are typically considered worth the wait. For example, the release of groundbreaking VR hit Half-Life: Alyx was huge for Valve, especially since it was 13 years after the last game in the series was released. The issue with Artifact 2.0 was that not enough players were eagerly waiting, let alone playing the original game.

However, given how Valve's Counter-Strike: Global Operations blew up after going free, the no-cost release of both an updated Artifact Classic and Artifact Foundry could be a game-changer for an underwhelmed playerbase. Perhaps there's a chance that this move could draw intrigued players to the abandoned game. Only time will tell.