Valve details more changes for Artifact 2.0, with expanded single-player content coming

Valve continue to revamp Artifact behind the scenes for the upcoming re-release with Artifact 2.0 and they've discussed more changes that will come for their Dota themed card game.

We already know it's no longer going to have card purchases, making it less of a gamble and more about the gameplay but now we know some more of Valve's plans and it's sounding exciting now. In the latest post from yesterday on Steam, they detail surprisingly quite a lot. What really caught my eye though was the mention of more single-player content.

Since players apparently loved the potential for telling stories about the Dota in Artifact, through comics and "flavor text", Valve said they are "doubling down" on the effort through a single-player campaign. The aim is to both teach new players the game and continue the story that began with A Call To Arms. This will link into their new progression system too, so that people will be rewarded however they play.

This new progression system, as they already mentioned, will give you cards and "other collectables" as you play through it. However, they've also said they're now going to use a Dota Underlords style rank system for competitive play to give "goals to aim for, a clear path to get there, and a meaningful way to measure yourself against other players" and that it might even be able to link up with "Artifact's robust tournament support".

The game modes have been tweaked too. Hero Draft, for example, will pull available cards from a "combined set of cards that you and your opponent have unlocked to keep things extra fair".

As for gameplay changes, there's plenty more coming. The Mana system was changed to give you a single Mana pool, that starts at 3 and increases 1 per turn and of course cards have been adjusted to account for that change. Additionally, some cards and abilities are still cross-lane but it seems mostly they only affect the lane they're in (as Artifact has three boards to fight across).

Various other mechanics and wording has changed too like how Armour works. To make it easier to understand and not require a spreadsheet, it's now 1 Armour = 1 Damage Blocked. Good, it doesn't need to be any more complicated than that really does it.

See all the changes mentioned in this post. You can follow Artifact on Steam.

What are your thoughts if you played it before? Does it sound good / bad? Let us know.