Steam Early Access News, Tips, Tricks & Ideas

Amid the latest kerfuffle to hit Escape from Tarkov, Madfinger Games has announced that Gray Zone Warfare enters Steam Early Access on April 30th. Check out the announcement trailer below, highlighting positive impressions from various content creators.

Supergiant Games’ Hades 2 launched to a positive critical reception (check out our review here) and a peak concurrent player count of 103,567 on Steam. Of course, this is only the beginning of early access, and it has a ways to go before its 1.0 release. The developer has outlined its goals for development, revealing that it’s released several “small hotfixes” to address crashes and progression bugs.

Despite performance issues, bugs and other problems with its early access launch, Madfinger Games’ Gray Zone Warfare is off to a solid start. It’s sold 400,000 copies within two days, with player counts peaking at 66,944 per SteamDB.

Slavic Magic’s medieval city-builder Manor Lords has hit a new wishlist milestone before its Steam Early Access launch and has hit a new wishlist milestone. After reaching two million wishlists as of January 2024 and crossing 2.5 million earlier this month, it’s now at a whopping three million.

Moon Studios’ No Rest for the Wicked launched into Steam Early Access last Thursday and received a mixed response due to various issues, including performance. Nevertheless, the development team has been quick to address many of these. Its second hotfix is now available, improving the overall performance of rendering, visual effects and fog.

Slavic Magic’s Manor Lords, a medieval strategy city-builder with battles, has garnered much attention recently, with an impressive two million Steam wishlists on Steam as of January 18th. Ahead of early access, however, it wanted to clarify a few things and set expectations ahead of the same.

Moon Studios’ No Rest for the Wicked will launch for PC via Steam Early Access on April 18th. It’s thus released a new launch trailer showcasing the setting and challenges players will encounter. Check it out below.

Evil Empire has made a call for alpha testers for The Rogue Prince of Persia.

Mega Crit surprised many fans when it announced Slay the Spire 2, a sequel to its popular rogue-like deck-builder. Launching next year for PC via Steam Early Access, it features new and returning classes, enemies, bosses and more. However, it’s also developed on a new engine, with the developer confirming to IGN that it ditched Unity in favor of the open-source Godot engine.

Mega Crit has announced during its first Triple-i Initiative showcase that Slay the Spire, its smash-hit deck-building rogue-like, is getting a sequel. Slay the Spire 2 is coming to PC and will launch into Steam Early Access in 2025. Check out the first trailer below.

Frame Break’s Lightyear Frontier, a sci-fi farming title that replaces tractors with mechs, launched into early access on March 19th for Xbox Series X/S and PC. It seems to have caught on well, with the developer announcing over 700,000 unique players in its first week.

Ender Magnolia: Bloom in the Mist, the sequel to the acclaimed Ender Lilies: Quietus of the Knights, is coming to PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PS4 and PC, with early access going live on March 25th for Steam. It was first announced during the Nintendo Direct: Partner Showcase for Nintendo Switch.

Endnight Games’ Sons of the Forest exits early access on February 22nd, nearly a year after it entered. While it previously only confirmed actor Shawn Ashmore voicing Timmy LeBlanc, new story content and polish, a new trailer is now available, showcasing other features to look forward to. Check it out below, courtesy of IGN.

Leveling up in Palworld is required to unlock new technologies and enhance your base. New technologies mean new weapons, new gear for your Pals and better workstations to construct all the items you’ll need to tackle the vast open-world of Palworld. And if you want to get everything on the tech tree, then you’ll also want to level up faster.

Ore is one of the most important resources in Palworld and it’s a little rare — you’ll need a ton of ore to build and ore fields aren’t exactly common. If you want to load up on resources, you’ll want to create a secondary base that mines endlessly. Do that and you’ll have more than enough ore and coal in Palworld. And you can do that by exploring specific locations on the map. These large ore deposits are always found in the same places, so here’s where you’ll want to look.

Maybe Palworld is a pretty weird place. If you want to make easy money in Palworld, you’ll want to start hunting a different type of creature. The weird animals of Palworld aren’t just armed to the teeth, they’re also an easy source of cash — traders will buy your Pals for a good price, and there are multiple traders you can find to boost your early-game earnings. But the most efficient “Pals” you can sell are human enemies. Even humans can be captured, and they go for even better prices on the Black Market. Yes, seriously.

Everything can be automated in Palworld. Assign Pals to jobs and skip all the busy work. Your captured critters can build for you and complete various jobs around your base — they can collect resources, craft at workbenches, or just clear out areas full of enemies. Pals naturally will just do whatever, so if you want your Pals to focus on a single job, you’ll need to use this very simple trick.

Lucky Pals are the Shiny Pokemon of Palworld — rare creatures with a slightly different color palette. But Lucky Pals aren’t just cosmetic. These immensely rare critters can have unique traits you won’t find on all those normal, non-shiny Pals. If you’re looking to catch the very best version of your favorite Pals, here’s a few tips to actually track down one of these rare Shiny variants. Don’t worry, they’re not nearly as rare as Shiny Pokemon, and there’s a method you can use to spot them so, so much faster.

Keen Games’ Enshrouded is out now on PC via Steam Early Access. The survival crafting title features base-building and action RPG mechanics as players explore the world of Embervale and attempt to push back against the terrifying Shroud. Check out the release trailer below.

Dynamight Studios has released a large new balance patch for Fractured Online. This update affects both PVE and PVP content. The patch, which was released quickly to get rid of a big economy glitch, also retunes some mobs, rewards,  and makes additional tweaks.

The Wagadu Chronicles has finally launched into Steam Early Access today, bringing the partially crowdfunded MMO to players on PC. 

Endnight Games has announced that Sons of the Forest, its sequel to the 2018 survival horror sandbox hit, will exit early access on February 22nd, 2024. In a new tweet, the developer revealed that Shawn Ashmore (who played Jack Joyce in Quantum Break) will voice Timmy LeBlanc, with his role in the game and overarching story expanding.

Over the past year, Fractured Online has had its share of ups and downs. From seeing the indie MMO pulled down thanks to parting ways with Gamigo in 2022, working on bringing the MMO back with only part of the original team, it’s not been easy.

Enshrouded, the most played demo in last month's Steam Next Fest, has a release date, as Keen Games dropped a new trailer this morning. The upcoming survival crafting ARPG will launch onSteam Early Access January 24th, 2024.

Fractured Online will relaunch Steam Early Access on November 8th, and Dynamight Studios has completed work on the base build ahead of the launch, and opened character creation. 

Industrial Annihilation, a sequel to the real-time strategy game Planetary Annihilation, has been announced. Developed by Galactic Annihilation, comprised of those who worked on the previous game, it launches in Steam Early Access sometime in Q2 2024 for $29.99. Check out the announcement trailer below.

Funcom’s Dune: Spice Wars will exit early access for PC on September 14th. Developed by Shiro Games of Wartales and Northgard fame, the 4X real-time strategy is based on Frank Herbert’s Dune. It will launch with its sixth major update, adding House Ecaz for six playable factions.

If you’ve been interested in checking out something new in the Indie MMO scene, then it may behoove you to know that Sojo, a solo indie MMO that has recently made its debut on Steam in Early Access.

91Act’s BlazBlue Entropy Effect, a rogue-lite action platformer based on Arc System Works’ BlazBlue, is out now for PC via Steam Early Access. It offers seven characters, including series favorites like Ragna the Bloodedge, Noel Vermillion, Haku-Men and more. Check out the launch trailer below.

The age of Pathfinder videogames seems to be upon us. Following solid CRPG Kingmaker and its sequel Wrath of the Righteous, just recently we saw the announcement of action-RPG Pathfinder: Abomination Vaults. And joining the party very soon, from the same developer as Abomination Vaults, is Gallowspire Survivors—the biggest divergence from the tabletop game yet. Launching in Steam Early Access on September 14, it combines the setting of Pathfinder with the gameplay of Vampire Survivors.