Valve’s digital card game Artifact launched in much the same way that the Soviet R-16 test-launched at Baikonur. Since then, back in May the game announced that it was going into a second beta to make changes and improvements, with our last story about the game being a preview of its new Draft gameplay mode. So what has happened since then?
The bad news is that the obvious answer is not a whole lot from the public-facing end. The good news is that things do appear to still be happening, and considering the expectation was always that the game’s second beta might take a while, this is not altogether unexpected.
A look inside the beta from PC Gamer back in July showed a game that did appear to be chiseling away at the complexity of the original game in bits and pieces, with a single-player campaign mode as well as many functional improvements. However, the piece also noted that Artifact would launch into an even more crowded market than when it initially launched, making its survival a bit more dicey even with Valve’s efforts. The last official update from the developers was from late September, promising a matchmaking queue for Constructed formats, new tutorials, and plans for more modes between the open structure of drafts and the more limited constructed options.
In summary, it looks like the development on the relaunch is still proceeding steadily, but at Valve’s usual pace (very, very slowly). Concerns over the marketplace when the game relaunches are real and worth thinking about, to boot.
