Artifact

Artifact is currently available on Steam.
 🛒 Get it on Steam for free (via Browser | Steam client*)
Supported OS: Windows • macOS • Linux + SteamOS (See system requirements)

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Artifact is a trading card game developed by Valve in collaboration with Richard Garfield, similar to games such as Magic: The Gathering and Hearthstone. It's developed in the Source 2 engine, similar to Dota 2, which Artifact was based on. It is set in the same universe as Dota 2.

The game was largely criticized and review bombed by many players who were disappointed with Valve abandoning the Half-Life series at the time, aswell as calling it "pay-to-win", even prior to Artifact being released. When the game released, the game would later quickly lost 97% players and Valve was planning to address the issues related to the game. The player count continued to drop throughout the year, to the point that Valve ended up decided to stop developing Artifact 2.0, and releasing both versions of Artifact (Classic, the original release and Foundry, aka Artifact 2.0) for free.

Screenshot of an Artifact-Match during "Shopping Phase"

An Artifact card called "Shop Deed"

History

The game was announced at The International 2017 and released on November 28, 2018. It was praised for its gameplay and visual style, but panned for its monetization scheme, which some users considered to be pay-to-win. Due to feedback and a sharply declining player based, Valve announced roughly five months after launch that they would rework the game to address its underlying issues in a blog post.

Artifact's main designer, Richard Garfield has since been layed off by Valve and isn't working on the game anymore. In an intervew, Garfield said that he believes the game could be saved, however he "isn't interested in damage control".

As of today, due to low player count, criticism from players and other continued issues, Valve has released both version of Artifact: Foundry (also known as Artifact 2.0) and Classic (original release of Artifact) as Free to Play.

Features

• Running on Valve's new engine, Source 2.
• Direct integration with the Steam Marketplace.
• Advanced, intelligent Bots to play against.
• A Deck Code API allowing users to share deck codes amongst each other.

System Requirements

• Artifact Classic seems to require Vulkan-capable GPU on Linux-based OS.
• Artifact Foundry requires Vulkan-capable GPU on Linux-based OS.

External links

• Official Website
• Animated Launch Trailer
• "Towards a better Artifact" - Blogpost announcing overhaul of the game