Steam Early Access can be a great thing both for developers and players. After all, it’s one of the best ways for studios to gather feedback while working on their games, while players get to experience the game long before the official release date. Of course, Early Access doesn’t always mean that the game will come out in a month or two. Sometimes it takes years before a game is actually finished. However, waiting for a year is very different than waiting for more than a decade. And it seems like Novus Inceptio was just determined to prove how long Early Access could last.
The game entered Steam Early Access more than 10 years ago, on October 5th, 2015, in the form of a survival sandbox focused on exploration and building. Recently, the game received its first major update since 2018. That’s approximately 8 years without a major update, and somehow Novus Inceptio is still not released. This could naturally make one wonder at what point a game that is still in development becomes practically the same as being abandoned.
Eight Years Without Updates Shows the Biggest Risk of Early Access
Check Out Novus Inceptio on Steam
Without a doubt, Steam Early Access could be quite tricky in general because there’s never a guarantee that a game will reach its full release ever. In fact, Steam has made sure to make this crystal clear with an Early Access disclaimer saying that games might never be completed. Novus Inceptio is a great example of why this warning exists in the first place. The developer revealed that due to a dramatic decline in sales, the game was no longer generating enough revenue to support full-time development. Unfortunately, the consequences of this unfortunate event lasted for a bit too long.
Guess the games from the emojis.
Guess the games from the emojis.
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In any case, the developer Martin Markus Mastny explained in the official October 2026 update announcement that although he had tried to return to the project multiple times, his personal life kept getting in the way. Yes, he eventually returned to the development process, but he avoided making any announcements until he could actually deliver something valuable. Although this is certainly a viable explanation of the situation, it doesn’t necessarily change how it seemed for the players. No matter how we look at it, eight years is a long time without a major update, especially when there’s no guarantee that the game will ever be officially released. It’s true that a lack of new content doesn’t necessarily mean a game has been abandoned, but after eight years of silence, it’s understandable why players might struggle to see the difference.
Novus Inceptio entered Steam Early Access on October 5, 2015, and remains in Early Access as of October 2026, despite receiving its first major update in eight years on October 5, 2026.
Novus Inceptio’s Comeback Could Be Much More Than a Simple Update
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Image via McMagic Productions -
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Image via McMagic Productions
Now that Novus Inceptio is back in the game, players are getting a lot more than a few bug fixes. According to the official patch notes, Mastny moved the game from Unity 5 to Unity 2019 and eventually Unity 2022, which is undoubtedly a lot of work. He also reworked combat, trading, crafting, the entire economy, and the character controls. In other words, if a returning player revisits the title after so many years, they will probably feel like they are playing an entirely different game. And all of this work was probably completely necessary considering how much games have changed overall in the past decade.
Developer Martin Markus Mastny explained in the official October 2026 update announcement that although he had tried to return to the project multiple times, his personal life kept getting in the way.
However, one of the most interesting decisions is the fact that the developer is actually returning to the original world from 2015, which was replaced at some point back in 2017. According to Mastny, he realized that he doesn’t want to shift away from his original vision that much, so he is willing to make the few compromises required for executing this decision. For example, Novus Inceptio is now an exclusively single-player game, and although he is planning co-op, there’s no release window for it. We just have to sit and hope that it is not going to take another decade.
One Major Update Might Not Erase Eight Years of Waiting
As impressive as the latest update might be, it will most probably be difficult for it to erase eight years of waiting. However, it seems like the developer understands this as well, as he acknowledged in his Steam announcement that the game’s negative reviews will most probably not disappear even if he continues improving the title. The game currently has a Mixed overall rating on Steam. Of course, this doesn’t mean that every negative review is related to the unfortunate development history of the survival game, but it may still be true that winning back players might not be as easy as it seems.
In any case, it appears that the developer has become very careful about making promises, which, considering everything, may actually be a good thing. On the other hand, it also leaves players without a clear idea of what to expect, so this is definitely a double-edged sword. The good news is that now Mastný is getting another shot at proving that he is capable of delivering improvements more consistently, which could build more trust in the title as time goes by.
Novus Inceptio is currently in Early Access on Steam.
