Welcome to Elderfield Patreon: $3/Month, No Full Game
Welcome to Elderfield Patreon starts at $3/month with a $5 Stalker tier. The developer says it is not early access and excludes the finished game.
The Patreon is at patreon.com/welcometoelderfield, listed as free to follow or $3 per month to join, with the “Stalker” tier at $5 per month. The price is not the important part — what matters is what it is. The developer wrote it plainly on the Steam forum: Patreon is not early access, and a subscription does not come with the finished game.
Price and tiers
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Free tier | Follow and receive public updates |
| Entry membership | $3 per month |
| Stalker tier | $5 per month |
| Higher tiers | Same content access as Stalker; the extra is pure support |
Community discussion in 2025 confirms the same thing: everything above Stalker grants identical access, so paying more is only about supporting the developer. There is no reason to climb tiers for “more content”.
What it actually provides
Before release, Patreon provided the alpha development builds that come after the free demo. The developer described that build as roughly 3–4 times the free demo’s content, with more town, catacombs and mines. Updates were frequent, from v0.1.x through v0.6.x, and members could report bugs while playing.
But it does not include the finished game. It is not early access and not a pre-order: what you pay for is following development as it happens. The full game released on Steam on September 10, 2026, so anyone who wants the complete experience today should buy it on Steam.
What happens when you cancel
This is the question people ask most. In the developer’s words: you can download the current build at any time while you are a member, and when the membership ends you simply cannot download new updates — the build you already downloaded keeps working and no content is taken away. In practice you can subscribe for a single month, grab the then-current build, and cancel.
Running a Patreon build on Steam Deck
It works, but needs manual steps: add the Patreon build as a non-Steam game, point it at the executable, and set the compatibility layer to the latest Proton. The developer confirmed these steps on the forum and there are YouTube walkthroughs. Steam owners do not need any of this — the retail build is already Steam Deck Verified.
How to choose
- You only want the finished game → buy on Steam (and try the free demo first).
- You want to follow a solo developer and help test → join on Patreon, starting at the $3 or $5 tier.
- You want to save money on the game → Patreon is not a discount channel; see the price page.
What players and the developer say
- One subscriber on Reddit describes the content volume this way: “Access to the old woods opens up a lot of content, and superior mine.”
- Another adds the practical experience: “It auto renews monthly, and the updates and fixes are frequent.”
- The original poster edited their thread after taking the advice: “Sold! I bought the membership and couldn’t have been more happier with the decision!” — though these are pre-release impressions, and after launch the Patreon’s role shifted from “play the development build early” to “support the developer and follow development”.
- The one line to remember is the developer’s own: the subscription does not include the finished game.
The above is player feedback and developer statements.
Facts checked 2026-09-12. Tier names and benefits can change with the Patreon page itself.