Discord's version of Early Access now live, includes a few indie gems
Launches with a five-game lineup.
A month after launching its own game store, Discord's version of Early Access has gone live with an impressive five-game lineup.
The "first wave" of Discord Early Access games includes whimsical RPG Kynseed, cute dino management game Parkasaurus and downhill biking game Descenders, which could well be the heir to Skate's throne.
The other two games are Mad Machines, which is basically Rocket League with robots, and PT-inspired horror game Visage. Yes, it's only five games, but I'm impressed with the quality that Discord have pulled on board.
Mad Machines is the only one that's exclusive to Discord: it's part of the 'First on Discord' programme, which will see some games launch on the Discord store first as timed exclusives. The others are already part of Steam Early Access, and cost the same on Discord as they do on Steam.
One potential advantage over Steam, I suppose, is that playing through the Discord games launcher means you're already set up to chat to other members of the community and, sometimes, directly to the developers themselves by using Discord's verified servers.
You can access the games through your Discord app or via its website, and you can find more details about the individual games on Discord's blog post.
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Samuel is a freelance journalist and editor who first wrote for PC Gamer nearly a decade ago. Since then he's had stints as a VR specialist, mouse reviewer, and previewer of promising indie games, and is now regularly writing about Fortnite. What he loves most is longer form, interview-led reporting, whether that's Ken Levine on the one phone call that saved his studio, Tim Schafer on a milkman joke that inspired Psychonauts' best level, or historians on what Anno 1800 gets wrong about colonialism. He's based in London.