Early access should always have been a limited state, where you have 1 or 2 years to release the game. Then if the game isn’t ready, it is unable to be purchased until it is released.
Which probably wouldn’t work well. All it would do is make the game “release” when the time is up no matter what making it harder to know if you are buying a complete product or not. It’s not like valve will go in and kick a game out if they don’t think it’s complete enough, or even be able to define that in a way that wouldn’t just be arbitrary…
And it refunds buyers.
Honestly, there’s only one early access game that I ever felt was worth it. BG3 did a lot with their time in EA. I’m sure there are others but my guess is that they’re not in genres I care about.
Beam.NG is a rare one that been in early access since 2013 and has continually put out updates the entire time. It’s a completely different game than where it started with hundreds of new features and dozens of new cars. One of the greats imo.
Valheim. The early access release was a more complete game than most complete games.
I’d like to add Factorio to this list.
Yes and then they have released like one meaningful update in 4 years.
They’ve had a few actually. Three new biomes (plains wasn’t really a thing when it first released), three new bosses for those biomes, all kinds of structures and craftables, some new mechanics (you can lay siege to Ashlands fortresses + magic)
It’s gotten quite a bit of love over time. Just not as often as some other games. Which is fine, because it is still actively being worked on.
They only had the first act, then it released filled with bugs, which weren’t even exclusive to act 2 and 3. It still feels like that game is in early access, the release should have been an early access update honestly.
It still feels like that game is in early access,
Crazy take tbh
I still have high standards for video games, so I am often disappointed. I started a BG3 playthrough with friends recently and came across the same issues I did a year ago and new ones.
