Steam Introduces Alerts for Early Access Games Inactive for a Year

Valve is making a change to how Steam Early Access titles are presented to potential customers, providing them with an insight into the game’s development status. In a new move, Valve will now display a notice for games that haven’t seen an update in over a year.

This update was initially identified by SteamDB, which highlighted the introduction of a warning message. This alert is prominently displayed at the top of the Early Access developer Q&A section, aiming to inform users about the last update date of the project in question.

Additionally, Valve has revised its Steamworks documentation to elaborate on this change. According to Valve’s statement, if a game’s development hasn’t been actively communicated through updates in over 12 months, a corresponding notice will be added to its store page just above the Developer Questionnaire section. This note is intended to make it clear to players that the game has been dormant for a significant period.

The notice will trigger under two specific conditions: if it’s been more than a year since a build has been assigned to the ‘default’ branch in Steamworks, or if a developer hasn’t posted any ‘update’ type events—whether major updates, regular updates, or patch notes—in over a year.

For as long as Early Access has been around, some games have unfortunately seen developers cease work altogether, leaving players without updates or progress. This new feature by Valve is their way of addressing this long-standing issue in the Early Access ecosystem.