Valve has announced it's ending development on its reboot of beleaguered card-battler Artifact, and will be making both existing version of the game free for everyone to play.
The original version of Artifact, designed by Magic: The Gathering creator Richard Garfield, failed to make much of an impact following its launch in 2018. Players rejected everything from its perceived complexity to its pricing mode (requiring both an upfront purchase and payment for additional cards), and it was barely seeing 100 players online in a 24-hour period by July.
Then, in May last year, after almost a year of silence, Valve confirmed it was embarking on a major overhaul of the game called Artifact 2.0 – which include a new three-lane view, a new draft mode, and, most significantly, would drop the ability to purchase cards and packs.