Valve now warns on Steam pages if an Early Access game hasn't been updated in a long time

Even though Early Access can be an incredible thing to allow developers to build up their game with the community, and pull in some early funds, it can also go very wrong. And now Valve are making it a bit clearer for you if a game hasn't been updated.

As spotted by SteamDB on Bluesky, in the big Early Access box on a Steam store page that sits at the top just below screenshots and videos, it will now have some highlighted text to note if there's been a long period since the last update.

Scanning over Steam today here's an example to show from Lethal Beach, that released into Early Access in January 2024 and hasn't had an update for 12 months.

Nice to see Valve do something about games that are just languishing on the store, seemingly doing nothing, but still may have people buying into them. Currently it seems like this notice might appear once the last update was at least 12 months ago from looking over various Early Access games.

This follows on from other Steam store updates like games now need to fully disclose kernel-level anti-cheat. Valve made a few other nice tweaks last year too like dealing with publisher spam on store pages.