Early Access has become a great asset for games big and small on PC platforms. It allows developers to get direct feedback from players on a more long-term basis than a demo, beta or an alpha would provide. It also lets developers to begin making money off the game, giving teams who may need more financial support towards the end of development an extra boost.
Source: Screen capture – KAne Hocking
Xbox has begun to enact a similar system in the last year. Xbox Game Preview is a system that allows developers to enable Early Access for their games on the console platform. Since its addition, nearly two dozen games have begun to take advantage of the program, and I believe we will begin seeing more games take part at a higher rate more frequently. This is because of the benefits that Early Access can offer developers, especially smaller development teams – and the success that other Early Access games have seen – that has been credited to their time in Early Access. Even Xbox themselves are seeing the Game Preview function as another strategy to give them a leg up over the competition.
Future Xbox Game Pass title Hades is one such success story that has come from participating in Early Access on Steam. One of the biggest reasons that Supergiant Games decided to take the Early Access route was how it connected the development to the player-base. Supergiant’s Creative Director Greg Kasavin revealed this in an interview with GameRant, stating:
“With Hades, we identified that we wanted to make an Early Access game first and foremost, to see what we could build in partnership with our community.”
Hades was in Early Access for two years. That’s a large chunk of development time spent allowing the community to play the title, and provide feedback directly to the team. The amount of crucial comments the developers received cannot be understated. The team released a formal thank you via their team blog, telling their supporters:
“Hades was made possible through the 10+ years of experience we’ve gained working together as a team, and the generous support and enthusiastic feedback provided by our player community during the course of development. Thanks to you, this game grew bigger than we ever expected, and we loved creating it in every detail.”
The feedback paid off too. Hades has won over 60 Game of the Year awards, with many more nominations on top of that thus evidently cementing itself as one of the hottest titles of 2020. None of it would have been possible without the suggestions provided by the fans. You can find our review of the Xbox Series X|S version of Hades here.
Valuable feedback isn’t the only benefit that developers gain by Early Access. There is also the financial help it provides – the second big help from Early Access comes from the cash aspect. By allowing the sale of Early Access games, the teams involved can use the funds provided to extend the amount of time they can afford to spend on the game before its full release. Being granted more time to polish a game can often lead to better-made games, especially with the amount of input Early Access titles can receive from its player-base.
Xbox has already begun to see the benefit of Early Access programs. Not only is it mutually beneficial for developers and fans, but it is also something that other console platforms aren’t exploring at all. Xbox has created a Game Preview program now on their Xbox consoles, and it’s is slowly seeing more and more support; Xbox themselves released Grounded into the Game Preview program last year.
A first–party Xbox title leading the charge of the new program is a big move which also allowed Obsidian to take a risk. Grounded isn’t your typical first–party game, it’s a smaller scale, multiplayer, survival title about a group of kids being shrunk down to the size of bugs and having to fight for their life against all of the yard’s worst nightmares.
Since Grounded released on Game Preview, we’ve seen ten other games hit the program across PC and Console:
- Prodeus
- Totally Accurate Battle Simulator
- Project Wingman
- Starmancer
- Second Extinction
- Fights in Tight Spaces
- Session: Skateboarding
- Super Animal Royal
- Ooblets
- Atlas
- Last Oasis
Source: Prodeus
The team over at Xbox isn’t planning on laying off of the program either. In an interview from July 202012021 with The Guardian, the President of Xbox, Phil Spencer stated:
“When we can stream to any device – a PC, or could be a phone – we can really look at how we make more of these kinds of early access [experiences], even as a funding model for creators sometimes. I think it can open up a tighter relationship between creator and consumer … Creators are a huge focus for us right now.”
Xbox sees the benefits I’ve mentioned of Early Access programs, and is planning to further flesh it out on consoles. With streaming as an option, developers wouldn’t even necessarily have to make a dedicated console port to benefit across the board either.
There have been so many Early Access games that have exploded in the last few years. From Hades, Valheim, Phasmophobia, Death Trash, CrossCode, and just hundreds more. Imagine if Xbox had more aggressively pursued this strategy earlier? Titles like these hitting the Xbox ecosystem before Playstation or Nintendo, would give the platform a major selling point. We’re talking about having first dibs on some of the hottest games on PC each year, and establishing fanbases for them on the Xbox platform years before they even touched another console, and setting relationships with the developers of these games into motion faster than the competition.
Unfortunately, Xbox’s execution of this philosophy has not been the best. It has been over a year since Game Preview started, and they’ve only managed to secure ten other games to join the program. Sure, the rollout has been slow, but with such recent comments being made about the importance of pushing this program, I believe we will begin to see more titles hit Game Preview. Nearly half of the games (Prodeus, Project Wingman, Starmancer, and Second Extinction) currently apart of the program have been added in the last two months or so. That shows a rapid increase in pace over the previous 11 months prior to it and a glimpse of what could be happening in the near future.
You can find and support these Game Preview titles on the Xbox or Microsoft stores, as well as Xbox Game Pass.
Mike Szoke
Editor-in-chief
