When speaking to Edge Magazine, Gabe Newell says that Valve was surprised by Artifact’s failure at launch. Despite the digital card game having less than 150 concurrent players a day, Newell and crew aren’t throwing in the towel just yet given that a “reboot update” is in the works.

It didn’t take a genius to figure out that Artifact had a grim future ahead of it before it launched, but it looks like the heads at Valve were surprised, according to Newell speaking to Edge Magazine.

In other words, the first hint that outlined this game’s very demise, which happened back during the early part of August 2017, somehow did not raise alarm bells over at Valve:

Even with the above as an indicator, Edge Magazine’s recent trip to Valve HQ in Bellevue, Washington, reveals that the CEO and his team didn’t see the failures of its 2018 card game coming. However, here’s Newell’s response to Artifact flopping hard:

“Artifact was an interesting failure in its first go-round. We were surprised. We thought that it was a really strong product.”

Newell continues and explains how Valve plans to resurrect the digital card game, and to do so it will take a lot of time since it is essentially a reboot or a second game that’s in the works:

“We ran an experiment, we got a negative result, and now we need to see if we’ve learned anything from that, so let’s try again. And that’s what [the team] have been doing and that’s what they’re getting ready to release. Based on the reaction to it, what was wrong with the product? How did we get there? Let’s fix those things and take another run at it.”

I do wonder if this so-called plan to revive Artifact — that sees Valve and crew hunkering down to focus on fixing issues plaguing Artifact — will be enough to bring it back from the dead?

While we wait to find out, rumors are circulating that all gameplay elements will be free, and the only monetization that will be in the new Artifact is a battle pass system for cosmetics (like avatars, card backs, arenas, effects, characters, and so on).

Lastly, Artifact the game is out now for $19.99 on PC via Steam.