It has long been known that Valve is still working on the rescue – or rather revival – of the Dota card game Artifact. Just recently, Steam boss Gabe Newell was optimistic in an interview about Valve's first big game flop. Now the developers are starting one soon closed beta phase for Artifact 2.0 announced.
What should be better in Artifact 2.0?
According to the official announcement, Valve has primarily focused on gameplay changes. There will be a wide view that gives players simultaneous access to all three paths – this is to prevent you from having to miss out too often due to a lack of drag options.
In addition, Artifact 2.0 should become more beginner-friendly. The developers want to forego the sale of cards so that beginners do not face opponents with superior decks directly. The new "hero draft mode" is also intended to help beginners by showing how a deck is put together.
How does the beta work?
There is no fixed start date yet. Valve wants to send invitations to selected owners of the game as soon as they have completed the current phase (quote: "test boring stuff"). First of all, those who have had Artifact since its first publication are given access to the beta. However, not everyone is invited, but one unknown number of players randomly gets beta access
After that, Valve wants to continue working on the beta and finally open it up to everyone. By the way: old statistics and individual maps were all deleted in the course of the restructuring. So you start from the beginning in the closed beta.
Artifact failed last year due to low player interest. Because the Twitch area for the game was so neglected, some users flooded it with illegal content such as porn and violent videos. Twitch took legal action against the spammers:
more on the subject
Twitch is suing everyone who spammed the artifact area with porn & violence
Half-Life: Alyx runs all the better, although there it was uncertain whether a Half-Life would only work for VR. You can find out more in our Plus interview with Valve (video).