Valve gives first look at the design of digital card game Artifact

Valve gave more information about its upcoming trading card game Artifact, which is based on Dota 2, at a presentation at its headquarters in Seattle. The game is very reminiscent of Hearthstone, but just like Dota 2 it has three lanes in which conflicts take place.

“Artifact will be to trading card games what Half-Life 2 was to single-player action games,” Valve executive Gabe Newell said during the game’s presentation. Various news media were present, who were also able to play a few games of Artifact themselves. Furthermore, Newell emphasized that the game should definitely not be ‘pay2win’, which means that players cannot build unbeatable decks if they put enough money into booster packs. The game itself will also cost money. There is no price yet for the game, nor for the booster packs.

Less rare cards can still be very powerful in Artifact, which means that the strength of a deck is more dependent on how much thinking has gone into it. The game should therefore be quite a bit more complicated than other trading card games. The comparison with not only Dota 2 but also Magic: The Gathering was made several times at the meeting. That turned out to be no coincidence, as Valve also revealed at the event that it hired Magic creator Richard Garfield four years ago to help design the game.

The game currently contains more than 280 cards and 44 heroes, some of which are taken straight from Dota 2 and can therefore look familiar. Players compose decks consisting of 40 cards, of which up to five are heroes and three are duplicates. The cards and heroes are divided into four suits – red, green, black and blue – and can only be played in a lane if there is a hero of the same color in the lane. The effects of cards can also affect other lanes. Similar to Dota, the aim is to demolish two of the enemy’s or his Ancient’s three towers.

Valve’s presentation included Ars Technica, PC Gamer, and IGN, each providing extensive coverage of what they saw and played, including, in the case of Ars, screenshots, concept art, posters, and photos of presentation slides. Artifact is currently in closed beta for Windows and should be released later this year. There is no talk of a Linux and MacOS version yet. A first tournament is planned for the first quarter of 2019. After that, a release on Android and iOS tablets should follow, with a arrival to smartphones after that.

Images: Ars Technica