Valve held a presentation for its upcoming Dota 2-themed card game Artifact at its offices in Bellevue, in which Gabe Newell revealed that the company is back to making and shipping games. Yes, back will – once again – start developing games, though this does not mean that they’ll be working on Half-Life 3.

Yesterday I spent the afternoon up at Valve's stunning new office in Bellevue. "We're back to making and shipping games," Gabe Newell assured me as he started to share details of @PlayArtifact , the new digital card game coming later this year. pic.twitter.com/q93Aern2IX

— Geoff Keighley (@geoffkeighley) March 9, 2018

Of course this isn’t something new as this information has already been confirmed back in January 2018. Still, it’s good hearing it once again from Gabe Newell himself.

Geoff Keighley said that Valve’s future games will combine software and hardware developments, similar to what Nintendo has been doing all these years.

Gabe said that future games will combine development of software alongside hardware, similar to how Nintendo designs hardware systems to bring new gameplay ideas to life.

— Geoff Keighley (@geoffkeighley) March 9, 2018

From what we know so far, Valve is currently working on three games. As Newell said in February 2017, Valve was building three VR games. Whether these projects/games are still under development remains to be seen.

Also, we do know that Valve is working hard on its Dota 2-themed card game Artifact. The gameplay of Artifact is to build a deck of collectable cards, obtained primarily via trading, in order to defeat an opponent in a 1v1 situation. As already said, the game is heavily based upon and features many elements from DOTA2. As such, Artifact will differ from most other traditional collectible card games, mainly because it will feature three “lanes” guarded by a tower at the end. Each lane exists as its own independent board and the player that destroys two out of three towers will win the game.

Geoff Keighley has shared some screenshots from Artifact and stated that while the game will not feature any single-player mode, players will be able to play against AI bots.

Here are some of the first images of Artifact – a collaboration with Magic creator Richard Garfield and set in DOTA universe. 280 cards, 44 heroes, "three lanes" of gameplay and some adorable imps. pic.twitter.com/z1YIdlC4wA

— Geoff Keighley (@geoffkeighley) March 9, 2018

There is no single player campaign, but you will be able to play against AI — or of course friends online on Steam. The game is coming to come out later this year with a tablet version in mid-2019.

— Geoff Keighley (@geoffkeighley) March 9, 2018

Thanks BackLogCritic