Ah Early Access games: the most "Russian Roulette" a purchase can get. The Early Access “classification” for a game can either be a death sentence or a saving grace for certain projects. For games like Hades, it was the best thing Supergiant Games did considering their exclusivity contract with the Epic Store and so on.
But, that isn't the case for every Early Access game as many of them either fall apart or never leave this "early" stage. Then there are odd cases such as Fortnite's Save The World which is in a unique limbo of its own. Let's talk about some of the most notable and worst offenders that fell apart during Early Access.
10 DayZ - A Shift Of Focus
We’re starting things off with a big one: DayZ; the game was in Alpha for a bit then moved to Early Access. Eventually, it abandoned the standalone version of the game altogether. It was originally an incredibly popular mod for Arma II by the same name that contributed a ton towards the booming success of the battle royale genre. But, in comparison, the standalone version that was supposed to be more survival-centered was left in the dust.
Constant bugs, poorly implemented systems, and so much more plagued what was originally a fantastic idea. The game spent more than 5 years in early access before it finally released in 2018. But by then, people had long since moved on to other similar games both in the survival and BR categories. Despite this, the game has not stopped updating by any means.
9 Atlas - Ignoring The Main Issues
Atlas, a survival-based pirate MMO, released into Early Access back in 2018. After a pretty stellar initial trailer at the Game Awards that same year, Atlas popped onto Steam to compete with other popular survival sims like 7 Days To Die or Ark: Survival Evolved.
And, while the dev team at Grapeshot Games has been continually updating and patching Atlas, these updates are rarely centered around fixing long-standing issues such as all the server issues, cheating, and frequent glitches/bugs. And it’s a shame, too, because most of the people leaving negative reviews on this game talk about how much promise it had. But it just keeps suffering from the same problems again and again.
8 The Culling - Unfortunate Timing
The first Culling game was one of the original standalone battle royale titles, meaning it wasn’t a mod of any other game, as DayZ was, or an alternate mode like how Fortnite started. And, while the first game saw a huge boom in players for a while, the release of PUBG in early 2017 sort of signed its death certificate.
After that came the Culling 2 in 2018, but this sequel was immediately criticized for being an unfinished game. This would be understandable if it was Early Access, yet it wasn't. And, by some weird twist of fate, the release of Culling 2 once again coincided with another big battle royal release of the new Fortnite season. So the game quickly dropped to single-digit players within the first few days.
7 Project Zomboid - Missed Its Window
Our next game on the list is actually one of the only ones here with a net positive user review average on Steam: Project Zomboid. PZ might also be the game that’s spent the longest amount of time in Early Access at a staggering 8 years. To be fair, the game comes from an incredibly small indie studio literally called The Indie Stone. But still, 8 years is way too long for something to hold the “Early Access” title.
That said, these developers have done tons of work improving the game from its initial state, but the general opinion seems to be similar to that of Atlas, albeit a fair amount less severe. Plus, with how many Zombie games come out monthly (especially ones with free content updates like the Outbreak mode in Cold War Zombies), it's hard to justify playing this instead.
6 Godus - Questionable Support
Godus and its sequel Godus Wars are quite an interesting story as far as Early Access failures go. Honestly, it’s too much to go into without a couple of paragraphs, so here are just the basic facts from it. Peter Molyneux was the man behind the Fable series, Godus, and another social experiment game titled Curiosity - What’s Inside The Cube. Anyway, after Godus was announced in the reward video for Curiosity, 22cans, Molyneux’s company, started a Kickstarter for Godus and raised quite a bit of money.
Time passed and Godus released into Early Access on Steam in late 2013, to a pretty lukewarm reception. But, rather than fixing their game or even finishing it, Godus was promptly abandoned by 22cans in 2015. Then, Godus Wars, a more combat-focused "sequel" came out not long after that and got even worse reviews for its awful monetization model and poor design.
5 Starbound - Tried To Do Too Many Things
Once again we’re talking about another game that doesn’t exactly have a negative reception overall and sadly still fell from grace in the Early Access phase. Starbound, developed and published by Chucklefish Games, is a 2D space-exploration procedurally generated survival game. Think of it as No Man's Sky meet Terraria, which, coincidentally, is also one of the best couch co-op games we can think of. But, in comparison to Terraria, Starbound is a much shorter and much more streamlined experience.
After the Kickstarter, Starbound then released into Steam Early Access in 2013. But, by the time the full release came out in 2016, fans realized that this was not the same project they signed up for, and there were a lot of rumors about how the developers were treated. It’s not as if Starbound is bad by any means, it’s just a much less narratively and mechanically complex game than what was promised. Luckily, the modding community for it is incredibly active, even to this day.
4 Cube World - Abandoned By Developer
Cube World is another unique case, as the game was "early access", but not on Steam. Basically, you could opt into the “alpha” version of the game back in 2013 and play it as the developer was working on it, which essentially makes it Early Access.
The problem with Cube World is that it had insane amounts of potential and seemed to be going somewhere, then the developer, Wolfram von Funck just went radio silent on the game for 6 years, before releasing a shoddy version of the alpha on Steam in 2019. It's neat, and can still be enjoyed in its current state, but is not at all what people wanted or expected.
3 Kurtzpel - A Worse Genshin Impact
Kurtzpel is likely the least offensive Early Access title on this list. Kurtzpel: Bringer of Chaos is a hard game to justify playing in 2020 when Genshin Impact exists, even with the new Awakening system they recently added. Both titles are action-combat-centric "MMORPGs" that focus on an anime-aesthetic. Yet, while Genshin has a gigantic roster of masterfully designed characters and constant expansions/updates, Kurtzpel lets you make your own character and drops you into a sadly pretty repetitive world.
It has great style and enjoyable gameplay, there's just not enough to do in the game itself to keep people interested. That said, it’s free-to-play, so the only thing you’d have to invest in it is time, and it's worth the download alone just to mess around with that character creator
2 Last Oasis - Riddled With Issues
Last Oasis is one of those games that has an incredibly inventive concept and even a pretty decent execution, but the end result fell apart due to a lack of developer response to a specific problem. Basically, Last Oasis is like that Mortal Engines movie, where the whole world travels on vehicles, though LO is on a smaller scale. Sounds neat right? Well, problem is, the game is just janky.
There are bugs everywhere, odd animations, optimization issues, and the late-game combat is tailored for large groups while completely ignoring those of you who played solo or with a small band of friends. So, unless you join one of those giant guilds that gatekeep all the Ceramic Tablet spawning locations, you won’t enjoy Last Oasis for long, and the developers have done nothing in almost a year since release to fix this glaring issue.
1 Fault - RIP Paragon
Out of everything on this list, our last game up, Fault, is the weirdest story on here. Fault is a third-person MOBA that literally uses the assets from Paragon, a now-defunct free-to-play battler from Epic Games. Back in early 2018, after Epic canceled the game to focus on Fortnite, the unthinkable happened: Epic released all of the assets from Paragon on the Unreal Engine Marketplace, something they owned, completely free.
So, that’s what Fault is. It’s a new game that looks exactly like Paragon because it literally uses the same assets. So where's the problem? Well, Fault apparently has one of the most toxic communities out there, the matchmaking is all over the place, and the developers are renowned for not at all listening to fan feedback.