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'AAA publishers are abusing early access,' Denis Dyack says, and that's making things harder for everyone else

'AAA publishers are abusing early access,' Denis Dyack says, and that's making things harder for everyone else Dyack believes that games like Subnautica 2 are "skewing player expectations" for early access games. "AAA publishers are abusing early access, skewing player expectations in such a way that it heavily disadvantages smaller independent developers." Denis Dyack, known for his work on games including Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain and Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem, says big game developers are "abusing early access" by using it as a marketing tool for highly polished games that are ready for full release anyway. Ethan McKinnon, who joined Deadhaus Sonata developer Apocalypse Studios as creative director after the game's rough early access launch earlier this year, added that "players naturally compare everything in the same marketplace, so smaller teams are being held to a much higher standard than they were in the past." Interestingly, Subnautica 2 creative director Anthony Gallegos seemed to agree with at least part of Dyack's proposition, saying in the same report that early access is "not a few edge-case games participating anymore." "Early access could mean a game like ours doing long-term open development, or it could be a game three months from a 1.0 release that's effectively doing a paid beta soft launch and using the Early Access term as a way to soften player expectations," Gallegos said. In a lot of ways, we were too focused on what made our game so different and unique that it took our attention away from making sure we got the basics done right." McKinnon put it more simply: "Developers need to treat early access like a real launch, because players do." 2026 games: All the upcoming games Best PC games: Our all-time favorites Free PC games: Freebie fest Best FPS games: Finest gunplay Best RPGs: Grand adventures Best co-op games: Better together Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80.

PC Gamer10/29/2026release

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'AAA publishers are abusing early access,' Denis Dyack says, and that's making things harder for everyone else

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"Developers need to treat Early Access like a real launch, because players do" – Early Access games are on the rise, but so are player expectations