Invites have started going out for access to the upcoming Artifact 2.0 beta, the second attempt to find an audience for Valve's notoriously troubled Dota-themed card game.
After a year of nearly complete silence, Valve began outlining their plans to bring Artifact back from the dead in a series of blog posts. The 8-post series, which began at the end of March, has outlined all of the major design changes the team is making to the game. Everything from deployment to heroes to the shop looks to be getting a major overhaul and it seems the game will be hardly recognizable to players of Artifact 1.0 when it goes into beta sometime soon.
What's more, in the March 30th blog post "What's The Plan - Beta 2.0," Valve revealed that they will not be selling cards anymore. The economy surrounding Artifact was one of its biggest problems and, though they do still sell cards, the earnable reward track that fellow moba-based-card-game Legends of Runeterra offers has been well received by its players. If Valve is taking a similar approach, there's hope yet for Artifact.
The emails, which are currently being sent out to players of Artifact 1.0, doesn't grant access to the beta. Instead, Valve will be using a lottery-style system to gradually provide access to players; the email is simply offering the opportunity to opt-in to that lottery.
In their most recent blog post, Valve explains that the beta for the original release of Artifact was too short, indicating that for 2.0, the beta period will last much longer. Hopefully, this will allow time for players to experience the new game and provide useful feedback to the developers before Artifact is re-released.
The email does not mention a specific start date or length for the beta. Not all modes will be available to play during the beta, including tournaments and draft modes. There won't be a tutorial either, but as the beta is only for existing players of the game, Valve is hoping it won't be too difficult to pick it back up, despite the many changes.
There is no embargo on the beta, so once it begins there will likely be people streaming the game on Twitch. If you haven't been invited to the beta, keep an eye on the streams to see all the big changes. Hopefully, the Artifact Twitch page won't turn out like last time.