Happy Fifth Birthday To Snow, The Oldest F2P Early Access Game On Steam

The notion of games launching into early access and then staying there for years and never fully launching seems like it's been around forever, but it's really only been ... wait, half a decade? OK, that is a while ...

Today we celebrate(?) one such game that's managed to stay in development limbo for a full five years: Poppermost Productions' Snow, a skiing/snowboarding game that went into early access on Oct. 10, 2013. When I first heard about it, I thought it sounded neat, though Magicman's First Look -- in 2016, after it went into "open beta" -- left me a little less optimistic. "No problem," I thought, "I'll just wait until they finish it and go into full launch."

I'm still waiting. While Snow's player base has never been large -- these days topping out at under 100 players per day -- that's a lot better than some games. It's also on the PS4, which makes you think Poppermost is getting at least something that allows them to continue development.

It's also not the oldest early access game on Steam overall; that honor goes to Lo-Fi Games' Kenshi, which was first playable on March 20, 2013. And in just over two months, we'll take note of probably the most famous and widely played early access game, which still loudly tells its players "PLEASE DO NOT PURCHASE IT UNLESS YOU WANT TO ACTIVELY SUPPORT DEVELOPMENT OF THE GAME AND ARE PREPARED TO HANDLE WITH SERIOUS ISSUES AND POSSIBLE INTERRUPTIONS OF GAME." Guys, don't shout, you'll attract zombies.

Have you played Snow extensively? If so, what do you think of it, and what does it need to launch?