When you click on an early access game on Steam, you might see a new note that could give an idea whether its developer has already abandoned the project. As SteamDB first reported, Steam has started adding notes on games' official pages if they haven't been updated in a while.

It’s still not exactly clear what updates are substantial enough to reset the counter and how long it takes between updates for it to appear. Open-world survival zombie sim Project Zomboid has been in Early Access on Steam for over a decade and doesn’t show the new warning because it still receives regular updates. Its last one was in January.

The Steam notice can tell you if a game that still needs work hasn’t been updated in months or even years.

Steam now warns players when games released in early access have not been recently updated. As spotted by SteamDB, early access games that have not recently received an update will now carry a warning to prospective players, stating: "The last update made by the developer was over [X] months ago.

It's not a universally applied system yet, but Steam will now tell players if an Early Access game hasn't been updated in over a year.

Valve has rolled out a new Steam feature that warns you when a game in Early Access hasn't had an update in a while, but there are caveats.

It's got its ups and downs, but I rather like Steam early access. Being able to get in on the ground floor of something, watch it develop, and support developers whose ambitions might exceed their initial budgets is a neat thing.

Steam has rolled out a subtle change to the store pages of early access games, seemingly in an attempt to warn players about purchasing an in-development title that might have been abandoned by its developers.