Steam Introduces Warning for Early Access Games Inactive for a Year

Valve has introduced a new feature on Steam that alerts users if an Early Access game hasn’t seen any updates for over a year, keeping potential buyers informed about its development status.

The update was flagged by SteamDB and appears as a warning message at the top of the Early Access developer Q&A section. This alert specifies the last time the game received any updates, ensuring that users are aware of a game’s activity—or lack thereof.

Valve has also updated Steamworks with details about this new notice system. The company explained, “If it’s been more than a year since the developers have worked on the game or posted an update event to inform players, a note will be added to the store page. You’ll find this note above the Developer Questionnaire, clearly indicating that the game hasn’t seen updates in a while.”

There are specific conditions under which this notice appears:
– If no new build has been rolled out to the ‘default’ branch for more than twelve months.
– If over a year has passed since an ‘update’ type event—be it a Major Update, Regular Update, or Patch Notes—has been shared by the developer to communicate improvements or changes to players.

The Early Access segment of Steam has, for a long time, included games that developers have completely abandoned. With this new feature, Valve aims to offer more transparency and protect users from backing games with stagnant progress.