Steam Introduces Warning for Early Access Games Inactive for Over a Year

Valve is introducing a handy new feature for those exploring Steam Early Access titles, aimed at providing transparency about a game’s development status. If a game hasn’t seen an update in over a year, you’ll now be alerted in advance.

This new addition was first noticed by SteamDB and manifests as a notification banner at the top of the Early Access developer Q&A. It clearly informs potential buyers of the last time an update occurred for that particular title.

Valve didn’t just stop there; they’ve also incorporated this update into Steamworks, offering more detailed guidance. In their own words, Valve states, “If it has been more than 12 months (one year) since developers have rolled out an update and communicated this through an ‘update’ type event to players, Steam will insert a notice on the store page, right above the Developer Questionnaire. This is to let players know the game hasn’t seen updates in quite some time.”

The warning will be triggered under these circumstances: if it’s been over 12 months since a build was pushed to the ‘default’ branch in Steamworks, or if more than a year has passed without any ‘update’ type communication to players—this includes Major Updates, Regular Updates, or even just Patch Notes.

The Early Access section has long been plagued by games that developers have seemingly abandoned, leaving players in the lurch. With this move, Valve is taking a step towards ensuring that users can make more informed decisions when engaging with such projects.