“Artifact,” new Valve card game based on Dota 2, announced at TI7

Valve officially announced Artifact, a digital card game based on Dota 2, during The International 7.

According to the announcement and discussion by TI7 host Sean “Day[9]” Plott, the game will feature a variety of Dota 2 features, spells and more.

“Anything you see in Dota, it’s here,” said Plott.

Players will control this card game as if they were the controller of all the heroes of a Dota 2 team. The player maintains five “heroes” at once, and the game features a three-board format, likely representing Dota 2’s “lanes.” Creeps will even be sent down the lane as well.

There was also a brief discussion of a variety of new modifiers unlike Dota 2. For instance, there are “improvement cards” that modify the lanes and upkeep every turn. For instance, extra barracks can send extra creeps down the lane towards the enemy.

While it sounds like the game has working prototypes, as Plott himself mentioned he has played, the only official Valve material is the Twitter account (@PlayArtifact) and a small teaser. According to the teaser and Twitter, the game will release in 2018.

We have reached out via Twitter for questions and comments and will update as they share further information.