Valve to start Artifact closed beta next week

Artifact was perhaps Valve’s biggest disaster to date. The card game based on the Dota universe was a subject of great hype and was unveiled at TI 7 in 2017. The game released amongst a lot of fanfare, but the very restrictive prices of cards and the fact that players had to buy them form the Steam market saw the game crash, hard. The player count greatly fell and now virtually no one plays Artifact.  

Last month Valve announced that they would be rebooting the game and would definitely do away with the highly restrictive way the cards were collected. They have been keeping fans updated about the progress with regular weekly blogs and in the latest one they have announced that they would be rolling out a closed beta next week. 

But don’t get too excited if you did not buy the original game before March 30, 2020. The players will be selected from this pool on a lottery basis. According to Valve, there are limited slots, but they will be adding more soon. 

“We will be sending an email to all players with the original game on their Steam Account (it doesn’t need to be installed). Emails will appear by NEXT WEEK,” they said. “Follow the instructions in the email to sign up for the Beta. 

 We will use a lottery system to invite people who have opted in. Access to the Beta will remain closed until we’ve worked though the signups from players of the original. Communication about the game will remain open for the duration of the Beta.” 

Valve will be testing Gameplay, Balance, Hero Identity, Color Identity, Social Features, Card Unlocks, Ranked Play, Replays, Spectating and the Campaign. However, Tournaments and draft modes, other than Hero Draft will be disabled during the early days of the Beta. 

There are also no restrictions on streaming, so if you did not get the invite, you might be able to watch someone else play the game instead.