Valve has introduced a helpful new feature for gamers exploring titles in Steam Early Access. Now, when a game hasn’t seen any updates in over a year, users will be informed right away. This change was first noticed by SteamDB, revealing a warning message that pops up at the top of the Early Access developer Q&A. It provides a direct notification about when the game last received attention from its developers.
To ensure transparency, Valve has also revamped Steamworks to reflect this update. According to Valve, should it exceed 12 months since a game’s developers posted any update-related event, a note will appear prominently on the store page, just above the Developer Questionnaire, making sure players are aware of the dormancy.
The message will trigger under two circumstances: if it’s been over a year since a new build was pushed to the ‘default’ branch in Steamworks, or more than a year since the developers communicated any sort of update—whether it be a Major Update, a Regular Update, or even through Patch Notes. This initiative addresses a long-standing issue where some Early Access games get left in the dust by their creators, stagnating without further development.
