Valve has quietly implmented a useful new Steam feature warning users – and potential purchasers – how long it’s been since an early access game last received an update.
Steam early access has unquestionably helped a huge number of games get over the development finish line since its introduction in 2013, including some major success stories – Hades, Subnautica, RimWorld, Rust, Ark: Survival Evolved, and Larian Studios’ 2023 smash hit Baldur’s Gate 3 were all early access releases, for instance. But many titles never make it that far, ending up abandoned and languishing in early access forever.
And historically, it’s not always been easy to distinguish the abandoned games from those still in active development – not without poking around though user reviews and developer update, at least. But now – as spotted by SteamDB on Bluesky – Valve is seemingly looking to make that process easier by placing a warning on early access titles that haven’t been updated in a year, enabling users to make a more informed purchasing decision.
Users viewing an affected release will now see a message in its early access box warning, “The last update made by the developer was over [x] months ago. The information and timeline described here by the developers here may no longer be up to date.” The message appears to trigger after 12 months without an update, increasing monthly then yearly from there.
Valve hasn’t publicly detailed its thinking behind the new feature, something it occasionally does over on the official Steam blog, but it’s certainly a useful addition given the increasing number of games adopting the Steam early access development model – a figure that’s risen from seven in 2013 to 2,605 last year, according to SteamDB.
Valve’s ongoing Steam finessing has also brought the likes video game recording, pinned notes, enhanced review filtering, and new family sharing options to the platform in recent years. It additionally introduced the ability for Steam users to mark individual titles in their library as private last March, preventing prying eyes from watching as they fire up Saucy Bum Game 4.