Steam Introduces Warnings for Early Access Games Lacking Updates for a Year

Valve has introduced a new feature for those exploring Steam Early Access titles, enabling players to see if a game hasn’t been updated in over a year. This change, identified by SteamDB, manifests as a warning at the top of the Early Access developer Q&A, informing users of the last time the game received an update.

Valve has also reflected this update in Steamworks, explaining the specifics. “If it’s been more than a year since a game received an update, and developers haven’t posted an ‘update’ event notifying players about it, Steam will place a note on the store page,” Valve elaborated. This note will appear just above the Developer Questionnaire, alerting players to the lack of updates.

Here’s when the notice shows up: if over 12 months have passed since a build was assigned to the ‘default’ branch in Steamworks, or it’s been over a year since the developers posted any ‘update’ type events, including Major Updates, Regular Updates, or Patch Notes.

Ever since its inception, Early Access has seen titles left in the lurch, abandoned by their developers.