Artifact Development Cancelled by Valve, Will Still be Available as a Free-to-Play Game

Valve is company with a pretty spotless record, but their collectible card game Artifact has been one of their rare misses. Amid low player numbers that Gabe Newell deemed a “giant disappointment,” Valve announced an Artifact revamp, which entered beta in early 2020. Unfortunately, it seems the finished version of Artifact 2.0 will never see the light of day.

Due to continuing low active player count numbers, Valve has announced active development of Artifact 2.0 is ceasing. The upshot is the game will still be available and is going free-to-play, which means everyone will have full access to all the game’s cards. The original version of the game will become Artifact Classic and the 2.0 beta will become Artifact Foundry. Both games have received one more update to transition them to F2P – here’s what to expect…

Here's an overview of our final changes to Artifact Classic:

• The game is free for everyone to play.
• All players get every card for free. You will no longer be able to buy card packs.
• Paid players' existing cards have been converted into special Collector's Edition versions, which will remain marketable. Marketplace integration has been removed from the game.
• Paid event tickets have been removed.
• Customers who paid for the game will still earn packs of Collector's Edition cards for playing; players who got the game for free will not.

The final release of Artifact Foundry looks like this:

• The game is free for everyone to play.
• Players gain access to cards by playing the game. All cards are earned this way; no cards or packs will be for sale and Foundry cards are not marketable.
• All final card art that was in the pipeline is now in the game.

Artifact Classic and Artifact Foundry are available to download on Steam now. Anybody thinking of tinkering with the game now that it’s free?

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