After launching on November 28th, 2018, Valve’s latest game Artifact saw a rapidly dwindling player base within only a few weeks. We reported back on December 6th that the player-base had lost 60% of players in its first week. However, almost a month and a half later, that number is in a much more concerning place.

Artifact hit a new low this morning, according to SteamCharts – at midnight (GMT) earlier today the game reportedly saw its lowest ever player count of 1,639 players.

In less than two months since launch, the game has lost around 97% of its player-base, a staggering decline particularly for a game created by one of video game’s most revered developers.

Despite releasing a major update on December 21st, the player numbers only spiked for around a week before returning to similar levels. This update added the ability for players to level up their account and receive rewards, including card packs for free. Evidently though, the game has more serious issues at play than just progression – such as the $19.99 / £15.99 entry fee, market based monetization approach resulting in a strong ‘Pay To Win’ feel, RNG heavy gameplay elements and the game’s long drawn out matches.

At this point we’re not sure what the future holds for Artifact. Valve have been known to bring back games from a bleak outlook, such as Counter Strike: Global Offensive which saw its player-base skyrocket from an average of around 30,000 players to an all-time peak of over 850,000 back in 2016.

That said however, the outlook for Artifact appears to be a much darker one right now. Hopefully Valve have some significant changes and improvements in the pipeline. We’ve reached out to Valve for comment.