Steam Introduces Alerts for Early Access Games with No Updates in Over a Year

Valve is taking steps to keep gamers informed about Steam Early Access titles that haven’t seen updates in over a year. This new feature was highlighted by SteamDB, which noticed a warning message now appearing prominently at the top of the developer Q&A section on Early Access pages. This alert signals when a game was last updated, helping players make more informed decisions.

Valve has also updated the Steamworks documentation to clarify this change. According to Valve, “If it’s been more than 12 months since a game has received updates or the developers haven’t posted an ‘update’ event to keep players in the loop, Steam will place a note on the store page. This note appears just above the Developer Questionnaire, clearly indicating to players that the game hasn’t been updated in quite some time.”

This notification is triggered if either of these conditions is true: more than 12 months have passed since a build was assigned to the ‘default’ branch in Steamworks, or it’s been over a year since the developer posted an ‘update’ event. These updates include any of the three types: Major Update, Regular Update, or Patch Notes.

Early Access has always had its share of games that unfortunately get left behind by developers, and this addition by Valve aims to add a layer of transparency to prevent gamers from investing in projects that might no longer be in development.