Valve enters the digital card game fray with Artifact

Valve is taking on a new genre with its latest game announcement, and expanding the world of Dota 2 in the process.

The company took to the stage at its annual The International Dota 2 tournament to reveal Artifact, a digital card game based on the Dota universe. Outside of VR titles, Artifact is also the first new project Valve has announced in quite some time. 

According to Compete, the game stands to act as a trading card-driven MOBA and will make use of many of the same design staples as most games in that genre like lanes and minions.

Beyond a tentative release date of 2018, not much else is known about Valve’s digital card game but its use of the Dota universe might be notable in its own right since Valve’s ownership of the property itself has recently been called into question.