Early access is proving its staying power on Steam, with six of the platform's top 10 highest-rated 2026 releases having started life in early access before reaching their full 1.0 launches. The rankings come from Steam250, which tracks the best-reviewed games on Valve's platform. Palworld and Valheim currently sit at the top following their respective 1.0 releases. Other former early access games in the top 10 include TCG Card Shop Simulator at #5, Fields of Mistria at #7, Timberborn at #8 and Scrap Mechanic at #10. Steam250 calculates its rankings by weighing the percentage of positive reviews against the total number of reviews, meaning smaller games with only a handful of perfect scores cannot easily dominate the list. #gaming #news #pc #top