'Artifact' Announcement: All the Available Details for Valve's 'Dota 2' Card Game So Far
Valve has announced its newest standalone game since the release of "Dota 2" back in 2013. "Artifact" is an upcoming digital trading card game and was teased at Valve's biggest tournament, The International.
With the $24-million tournament nearing its end, Valve saw to make some surprise announcements. According to host Sean "Day9" Plott who made the reveal, "anything you see in 'Dota,' it's here."
Plott said that anyone who has played digital card games in the past will be quite familiar with the way creatures and spells are cast onto the board. However, he also pointed out that there will be quite a difference between "Artifact" and other games in the genre.
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For starters, players will control five heroes and deploy them on three boards, which represent lanes much like a game of "Dota." The heroes will also be able to use abilities and can move between lanes.
At every turn, creeps spawn on every lane which the players can kill, along with enemy heroes, to get gold. These, in turn, will allow them to buy "item cards" which they can equip to their heroes and make them stronger. Some cards also have persistent effects on the lanes themselves which can affect the units in them.
Aside from these, not much about the game has been revealed. A trailer is available but it offers nothing more than the game's title and logo. Still, fans can expect a few more details to come out after the conclusion of this The International 2017.
It's still too early to predict how the game will perform in the already saturated digital card game genre. On one hand, it has a unique gameplay which crosses the elements of "Dota" with standard card game mechanics. But if there's anything Valve has taught gamers in the past, is that they can make any game a hit.
"Artifact" is set to be released in 2018 and will most likely be a "freemium" game much like Valve's other games. Platform-wise, it is expected to come out to the PC via their Steam distribution platform. But with Valve's plans to make Steam run on mobile, the game making its way to smartphones and tablets is definitely a possibility.
