After a long silence, Valve comments on their game Artifact. The developers want to investigate the fundamental issues of the game.
What is happening with Artifact? For a long time, it has been quiet regarding Valve’s card game and player dissatisfaction was growing.
After the rather unfortunate launch and many complaints about the lack of game content and the high degree of randomness, there was a massive drop in player numbers in January 2019.
Currently, according to SteamCharts, Artifact has about 417 active players:
What does Valve say about the situation? Now Valve has broken the silence. In a statement on Steam, the developers said they want to put updates for Artifact on hold indefinitely.
The reason is that Valve wants to address the fundamental issues of Artifact.
Artifact represents the biggest discrepancy between our expectations and the actual result. However, we do not believe that players have misunderstood our game or are playing it incorrectly. Artifact is an opportunity for us to improve and to use this knowledge to create a better game.
Valve employee Jeep Barnett
The developers have been monitoring the player base and collecting feedback since the launch. Therefore, they will now reassess the core aspects of Artifact. These include:
- Fundamental game design
- The game economy
- Social experience when playing
According to the Steam announcement, the work is expected to “take a lot of time.” However, the developers view this as a challenge.
What are the reactions? Many players on Steam and Reddit reacted to this news with mixed feelings. While some fans wish the development team good luck, others are more than skeptical.
In the Reddit thread about the announcement, players speculated about a complete relaunch of Artifact, similar to what happened with Final Fantasy XIV.
Several people also made the joke about “Valve Time” and that working on Artifact would likely take years or even never be completed, as it has been the case with the Half-Life games.
What do you think? Can Artifact still be saved? What would you change about the game?
