By Sagar V. Mankar 
Valve has introduced a new feature on its Steam platform to inform users about the “update frequency” of Early Access games. This addition aims to help gamers make informed decisions by indicating “how long it has been since a game received its last update.”
Early Access allows developers to release unfinished games to gather feedback and funding from players. While many projects benefit from this model, some remain incomplete or are abandoned over time. To address this, Steam now displays a notification on Early Access game pages if a title hasn’t been updated for an extended period. For example, the game “Cavern Kings” has a notice stating it hasn’t received an update in over eight years.
First spotted by SteamDB, the notification reads: “The last update made by the developers was over [X] months ago. The information and timeline described by the developers here may no longer be up to date.”
However, there are instances where the warning appears despite recent developer activity. For example, “Heartbound” displayed a notice indicating no updates in 13 months, even though the developer had posted an update note in January and released a patch on February 1st. This suggests that the feature may still need refinement to accurately reflect a game’s update status.
Nonetheless, the introduction of this notification is a consumer-friendly move by Valve, aiming to prevent customers from investing in games that may never see completion. By providing transparency about a game’s development activity, players can make more informed purchasing decisions.
Early Access has been a significant part of Steam’s gaming model for years, offering benefits to both developers and players. Successful titles like “Baldur’s Gate 3” and “Hades” have utilized this model effectively. However, not all projects reach completion, leading to concerns about abandoned games remaining available for purchase. This new warning system addresses these concerns by alerting users to potential inactivity in a game’s development.