Palworld dev doesn’t understand Early Access, blames the consumer. I haven’t bought palworld, nor plan to, unless pocket pair fixes their other game which has been stuck in Early Access for years and still is a buggy unfinished mess, Craftopia. Consumers have come to understand that they can’t rely on developers to fulfill the vision they are selling with their EA game, all they can do is trust the game that is out now.
I, for one, love early access games. There is exactly a single game I bought in EA that had its vision canned, Wizard with a Gun, and that had to do with publisher problems. I see EA as a way to get involved with the game development, and to fund games that I actually like and enjoy. So far, even games that have been stuck in EA forever are highlights in my gaming library (looking at you Exanima and Zomboid). But I’m usually okay with replaying games every few years to see what’s up and different. I know that is not for everyone, but I’d still say to give it a shot if you have the time, you might surprise yourself. But don’t focus on the end, focus on the present of the game, engage with it, yes, but don’t bother being a completionist. Just have fun.
Some Personal Anecdotes about Early Access:
My first foray into Early Access was with Exanima, bought it in early 2020 during the Covid era. It has been in development since 2013, it’s a crazy complex project, but the game that was out in 2020 was already something you could easily play for 100+ hours. That’s a full game with bonus game coming for it. I’ve recently replayed the game, and it’s in a much more polished state, probably coming out with 1.0 in the next 1~2 years. I super recommend it to anyone who likes dungeon crawls/souls lite games, it might seem crazy to have a game be 10+ years in development, but the devs are indeed cooking, and it’s fairly cheap on steam. The best part of Early Access for me is getting involved with the community (not in excess though…), talking to people about the game in its current state, discussing strategies, opinions, ideas, ways to improve the game, and leaving feedback that I know might be listened to, instead of just glanced at.
Then I started playing Valheim in 2021 with a friend, and it was a blast. My first playthrough took around 180h before we finally defeated the 5th and final boss, Yagluth, at the time. I still vividly remember my first encounter with a deathsquito, it killed me instantly as I was trying to read its name, and my buddy had to run for his life. In 2024 I hopped back in with another friend after the Ashlands update, and we literally spent the entire year of 2024 playing the game, rocking a total of 260h over many many weekends before defeating the Ashlands boss. I sit now at 440h played with that game, all in Early Access. And I’ll selfhost a new server in my homelab starting this friday, we’ll invite as many friends as we can, and try to conquer the entire game again. I’m super excited for it.
As a final anecdote, let’s talk about V-Rising. I had been invited to playtest the game in 2022 I think, or late 2021. I loved it, it was simply amazing. Early Access came out, I bought the game and convinced many a friend of mine to buy and play with me. We played that game as a group every year, for three years in a row until 1.0 came out. It’s, in my opinion, the best ARPG with a top-down camera in the market. Combat is crispy, bosses are great, pvp is ridiculously fun (I prefer it to PoE2). And it was incredible to see the game get more and more polished over the years. Bosses would get shuffled around in level and rewards, new bosses would be added, new areas, new weapons/items… Every year that we replayed, the game was still fresh, challenging and growing. I still plan to spin a new server maybe next year so that we can go for a final run of that game at our own pace before a V-Rising 2 comes out (which has sort of been announced already, not sure if that’ll be the name though).
In conclusion: early access can be extremely fun, if you’re interested in getting involved with the game’s development, leave feedback, come back in a year or two, and enjoy the journey more than the destination.
Seconding Zomboid and also throwing Stationeers onto the pile. Both of these games have been in Early Access for years, much longer than most games take to make. But these two are not your average games. We’re talking thousands of hours of playtime between them. More depth than you can shake a stick at, in both games.
Zomboid is the most detailed and realistic Zombie Apocalypse game you’ve ever seen. Keep your survivor character fed, clothed, warm and happy. Build thousands of objects in your base including barracades for doors and windows, entire walls. You can go in the woods and chop down trees and make your own house from scratch. And then there’s the zombies! Crazy good game.
Stationeers is kind of a mix between base building in Space Engineers and Dwarf Fortress. It’s gonna make you wish you had a chemistry degree. Atmospherics are extremely detailed. Your character also has the usual needs like food and water but also they recently introduced the need to have a bathroom. No longer does your video game character inhale huge quantities of food and drink that just disappears into a void. Now you get polluted water! Oh, not that glamorous I guess.
Palworld dev doesn’t understand Early Access, blames the consumer. I haven’t bought palworld, nor plan to, unless pocket pair fixes their other game which has been stuck in Early Access for years and still is a buggy unfinished mess, Craftopia. Consumers have come to understand that they can’t rely on developers to fulfill the vision they are selling with their EA game, all they can do is trust the game that is out now.
I, for one, love early access games. There is exactly a single game I bought in EA that had its vision canned, Wizard with a Gun, and that had to do with publisher problems. I see EA as a way to get involved with the game development, and to fund games that I actually like and enjoy. So far, even games that have been stuck in EA forever are highlights in my gaming library (looking at you Exanima and Zomboid). But I’m usually okay with replaying games every few years to see what’s up and different. I know that is not for everyone, but I’d still say to give it a shot if you have the time, you might surprise yourself. But don’t focus on the end, focus on the present of the game, engage with it, yes, but don’t bother being a completionist. Just have fun.
Some Personal Anecdotes about Early Access:
My first foray into Early Access was with Exanima, bought it in early 2020 during the Covid era. It has been in development since 2013, it’s a crazy complex project, but the game that was out in 2020 was already something you could easily play for 100+ hours. That’s a full game with bonus game coming for it. I’ve recently replayed the game, and it’s in a much more polished state, probably coming out with 1.0 in the next 1~2 years. I super recommend it to anyone who likes dungeon crawls/souls lite games, it might seem crazy to have a game be 10+ years in development, but the devs are indeed cooking, and it’s fairly cheap on steam. The best part of Early Access for me is getting involved with the community (not in excess though…), talking to people about the game in its current state, discussing strategies, opinions, ideas, ways to improve the game, and leaving feedback that I know might be listened to, instead of just glanced at.
Then I started playing Valheim in 2021 with a friend, and it was a blast. My first playthrough took around 180h before we finally defeated the 5th and final boss, Yagluth, at the time. I still vividly remember my first encounter with a deathsquito, it killed me instantly as I was trying to read its name, and my buddy had to run for his life. In 2024 I hopped back in with another friend after the Ashlands update, and we literally spent the entire year of 2024 playing the game, rocking a total of 260h over many many weekends before defeating the Ashlands boss. I sit now at 440h played with that game, all in Early Access. And I’ll selfhost a new server in my homelab starting this friday, we’ll invite as many friends as we can, and try to conquer the entire game again. I’m super excited for it.
As a final anecdote, let’s talk about V-Rising. I had been invited to playtest the game in 2022 I think, or late 2021. I loved it, it was simply amazing. Early Access came out, I bought the game and convinced many a friend of mine to buy and play with me. We played that game as a group every year, for three years in a row until 1.0 came out. It’s, in my opinion, the best ARPG with a top-down camera in the market. Combat is crispy, bosses are great, pvp is ridiculously fun (I prefer it to PoE2). And it was incredible to see the game get more and more polished over the years. Bosses would get shuffled around in level and rewards, new bosses would be added, new areas, new weapons/items… Every year that we replayed, the game was still fresh, challenging and growing. I still plan to spin a new server maybe next year so that we can go for a final run of that game at our own pace before a V-Rising 2 comes out (which has sort of been announced already, not sure if that’ll be the name though).
In conclusion: early access can be extremely fun, if you’re interested in getting involved with the game’s development, leave feedback, come back in a year or two, and enjoy the journey more than the destination.
Seconding Zomboid and also throwing Stationeers onto the pile. Both of these games have been in Early Access for years, much longer than most games take to make. But these two are not your average games. We’re talking thousands of hours of playtime between them. More depth than you can shake a stick at, in both games.
Zomboid is the most detailed and realistic Zombie Apocalypse game you’ve ever seen. Keep your survivor character fed, clothed, warm and happy. Build thousands of objects in your base including barracades for doors and windows, entire walls. You can go in the woods and chop down trees and make your own house from scratch. And then there’s the zombies! Crazy good game.
Stationeers is kind of a mix between base building in Space Engineers and Dwarf Fortress. It’s gonna make you wish you had a chemistry degree. Atmospherics are extremely detailed. Your character also has the usual needs like food and water but also they recently introduced the need to have a bathroom. No longer does your video game character inhale huge quantities of food and drink that just disappears into a void. Now you get polluted water! Oh, not that glamorous I guess.