Valve halted development Artifacts 2.0, a refreshed version of its Dota card game, the company announced Thursday. Artifacts originally launched in November 2018, where the initial potential was hampered by a complex economy trapped in Artifacts’‘s mechanics. Valve started the project again in March 2020 and started testing Artifacts 2.0.
In a post published on Artifacts‘s Steam Community Page, Valve wrote:
Although we are fairly satisfied that we have achieved most of our goals at stake, we have not yet managed to bring the active player numbers to a level that justifies further development at the moment. As such, we have made the difficult decision to stop the development of the Artifact 2.0 Beta.
Players can download now Artefak Klassiek or the Artifacts 2.0 beta, renamed Artifact Foundry, free. No further updates will be made to any version.
‘Technical Artifact Foundry remains an unfinished product, but most of what is missing is polish and art. The core of the game is there, ‘Valve said. “Although both games will remain playable, we do not intend to send further game updates.”
The following set of changes will be made to Artefak Klassiek:
The game is free for everyone to play.
All players get each card for free. You will no longer be able to buy card packs.
Paid players’ existing cards have been converted into special versions of the Collector’s Edition, which will remain marketable. Market integration has been removed.
Tickets for paid events have been removed.
Customers who paid for the game still deserve packs of Collector’s Edition cards to play; players who got the game for free will not.
Meanwhile, it Artifact Foundry has the following notes:
The game is free for everyone to play.
Players gain access to cards by playing the game. All cards are earned this way; no tickets or packages will be for sale Artifact Foundry cards are not marketable.
All final card art that was in the pipeline is now in play.
The announcement of ArtifactsThe development ends shortly after BioWare said it would no longer work Anthem Next, a similarly troubled project. While some games, such as space simulator No Man’s Sky, was able to recover with updates after launch, proving 2021 that performance is not simple, even for large studios.