Steam Introduces Alerts for Stagnant Early Access Games

Valve has introduced a new feature for those exploring Steam Early Access titles. Now, users will be alerted if a game hasn’t seen any updates for over a year.

This change was first noticed by SteamDB. They reported that a warning message is now visible at the top of the Early Access developer Q&A section. This message informs potential players about when the game was last updated.

In tandem with this, Valve has also revised Steamworks documentation to include this update.

Valve explained, “If it’s been more than 12 months (one year) since developers have rolled out any updates for a game and communicated this through an ‘update’ type event, Steam will automatically include a note on the store page. This message appears just above the Developer Questionnaire, informing players that the game has not seen recent updates.”

This notice is triggered by one of two conditions:
1. No new builds have been added to the ‘default’ branch in Steamworks for over 12 months.
2. There hasn’t been an ‘update’ type event—whether it’s a Major Update, Regular Update, or Patch Notes—for the same duration, keeping players in the dark about the game’s progress.

The Early Access platform has long been notorious for featuring games that are sometimes completely abandoned by their developers, leaving players in the lurch.