Valve is taking steps to enhance transparency for those exploring Steam Early Access games by letting users know if a game hasn’t seen any updates for over a year.
This update was first observed by SteamDB, which noted a new warning message appearing at the top of the Early Access developer Q&A section. This alert informs users when the last update to the game in question occurred, offering valuable insight into the game’s current development status.
Furthermore, Valve has made updates to Steamworks to explain this feature. According to Valve, if a game on Steam exceeds a year without any updates, a notification will be added to the store page. This will be prominently displayed just above the Developer Questionnaire, indicating to players that the game hasn’t seen any recent updates.
This notification will be triggered under two conditions: when more than 12 months have passed since a game build was assigned to the ‘default’ branch in Steamworks or when it’s been over a year since the developer communicated an update through any ‘update’ type event. These events include Major Updates, Regular Updates, or Patch Notes.
Historically, Early Access has been home to many projects that developers eventually abandoned, leaving players in the dark about the future of those games. With this new measure, Valve aims to keep players informed and engaged by providing them with crucial information about a game’s development progress.
