Valve CEO Gabe Newell called Artifact an "interesting failure," since the company thought it was a strong product. He also told the magazine that the team analyzed the things people didn't like about the product in order to fix them:

"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 Artifact 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."

Newell didn't say when the update will be released and didn't elaborate on whether it's a full-blown sequel or something else. He did say, however, that the company needs "to do a larger reboot in order to justify [the game's] existence to customers and to markets."

Valve also posted an update on Steam that says it will reveal more details after Half Life: Alyx launches on March 26th. In that announcement, Valve thanked fans for their continued interest in Artifact and promised to start "tests on [its] systems and infrastructure."