Should More AAA Games Start Releasing in Early Access?

Key Takeaways

• Many triple-A games launch in unfinished states with severe glitches and missing content, except publishers charge full price rather than cut-price early access rates.
• Early access could help triple-A studios gather feedback, experiment with risky ideas, and deliver higher-quality games.
• Although early access isn’t perfect for triple-A games, embracing it could lead to more polished and feature-complete releases.

For many independent game developers, early access releases are a valuable tool that secures funding, feedback, and publicity. So is it time for triple-A studios to follow suit and start releasing their own games in early access?

What’s the Point of Early Access?

As the name implies, early access allows you to purchase and play a pre-release build of an upcoming game. Early access games are often unpolished and buggy due to their incomplete state, but they provide a means to support developers and offer feedback on their work.

For indie studios that don’t have the budgets to employ play testers or large marketing teams, early access is essential for reaching a wider audience and delivering a complete game.

Triple-A studios aren’t usually affected by these problems, but they still regularly struggle to release finished games. Over the last decade, numerous triple-A games have launched in severely unpolished or outright unfinished states.

Games like Cyberpunk 2077 and Battlefield 2042 are infamous for their disastrous releases, having launched with an abundance of frustrating glitches and game-breaking bugs. Likewise, Street Fighter V, The Sims 4, and Final Fantasy XV were all missing essential content at launch.

These problems were eventually addressed through free updates and paid DLC, but that doesn’t change the fact that day-one buyers received an incomplete experience. Unfinished triple-A games don’t seem to be going away anytime soon, but releasing these games as “early access” titles could help.

Early Access Benefits Both Developers and Players

Many players mistakenly assume that unfinished releases are the result of lackluster playtesters or lazy developers. In actuality, developers work hard to address as many bugs as possible, but they’re rarely able to fix everything within their tight deadline.

Studios will sometimes delay a release date to spend more time bug-testing and making other improvements, but even this doesn’t guarantee a polished game. Redfall and Skull & Bones both saw length delays, yet these games still contained severe bugs at launch. While it would be ideal for triple-A developers to always have more time to polish their games, even the largest studios have a limit on the time and budget they can spend on a single game.

Furthermore, most games on current consoles rely heavily on downloadable updates to fix issues and restore missing content, allowing developers to release an unfinished game and eventually improve it through post-launch support. Cyberpunk 2077 and No Man’s Sky famously recovered through continuous updates, overcoming their widely panned releases to deliver critically acclaimed experiences.

Releasing these games as early access titles would provide a more honest description of their current state and inform players of exactly what type of product they’re getting. Many modern games already follow the early access structure; delivering an unpolished or incomplete game at launch and gradually patching it into the experience that was initially promised.

The problem is that these triple-A games are being marketed as finished products regardless of their actual quality. While this may not seem like a problem since many games are eventually patched, it’s important for buyers to understand exactly what they’re purchasing. Selling an unfinished game without any disclosure of its current state is a deceptive business practice, yet it’s becoming a common occurrence for new releases.

Early access also provides developers with more time to address bugs and add features that couldn’t be included at launch. Although this would likely result in triple-A games taking longer to reach a full release, it could potentially reduce development crunch time and ensure that new games launch in a much better state.

Early Access Games Can Improve With Feedback

Indie developers often use early access to test new ideas and gather feedback from players. While smaller indie teams and solo developers don’t always have other options for garnering feedback, triple-A studios often have a wide variety of resources. Major studios are able to rely on teams of playtesters, focus groups, and professional critics, but that doesn’t make player feedback any less important.

Even with all these resources, player feedback is still a valuable tool for triple-A studios. Internal consultants provide a useful, yet ultimately limited, perspective on a game. In contrast, early access invites feedback from all types of players.

Having a wide variety of perspectives can help a game identify problems or potential ways to improve the user experience. This not only applies to core gameplay mechanics but also other elements such as online connectivity and accessibility features. Being able to gather a broad range of perspectives from players can help developers improve their games and make them more accessible to a wider audience.

Early access releases could also encourage triple-A studios to experiment with potentially risky ideas. Minecraft famously used its early access versions to add many of the game’s most famous creatures and features, as well as testing a few ideas that were later removed.

With early access, triple-A franchises can shake up their formulas by introducing creative features in early access builds, which could be tweaked or removed for the final release depending on player feedback.

Early Access Isn’t Perfect, And That’s OK

Even among indie developers, there are numerous downsides to an early access release. Plenty of early access projects are abandoned by their developers, leaving supporters with a permanently unfinished game. It’s easy to imagine how larger studios could try exploiting this system, especially when companies like Ubisoft and Sony are willing to revoke your purchased games.

Despite their poor track record, triple-A studios are much more likely to deliver a finished product than most independent developers. Not only do these studios possess the resources to complete a game, but there are also far more risks involved in canceling a project. Most triple-A releases require millions of dollars from both the publisher and its investors. The further a game progresses in development, the bigger the loss will be if it’s suddenly canceled.

Even if a publisher tries to abandon its game after charging players—a practice that’s not uncommon for early-access games—the negative consequences would vastly outweigh the financial gain. Although obscure developers get away with this all the time, triple-A studios place their established brand and reputation at risk by failing to deliver a finished product.

For example, the disastrously buggy launch of Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed Unity had a lasting impact on the franchise and contributed to the lackluster sales of its sequel: Assassin’s Creed Syndicate. In contrast, Palworld developer PocketPair has received criticism for the unfinished state of its previous game, Craftopia, but the studio’s lesser-known status has prevented this from affecting its recent success.

There isn’t even much incentive for publishers to abandon their games. Although they could easily take the money and run, some of the most successful early-access games didn’t reach the height of their popularity until their full release. A recent example of this is Baldur’s Gate 3, which was available in early access for nearly three years before exploding in popularity with its full release in 2023. As such, studios have much more to gain from seeing development through to the end instead of abandoning a game or prolonging its early access period.

Admittedly, game companies aren’t known for making the best decisions, so there’s no guarantee that triple-A developers will always use early access properly. As with any early access release, it’s important to exercise caution and determine if these games are worth buying before handing over your money. However, if more studios follow Valve’s lead with Deadlock and adopt an early access release strategy, we’ll likely see fewer games hitting store shelves in an unfinished state.

Triple-A Gaming Can Be Better With Early Access

While early access releases aren’t necessary for all games, more studios should be willing to embrace the practice rather than promoting unfinished experiences as a complete product. Not only would this be a more honest way to market games, but it would also provide developers with more time to deliver a polished and fully realized experience at launch.

Early access has aided in the development of many fantastic indie games, so it’s time for big-budget releases to follow their example.