Is the release version a completely new download or an just a big update of the early access version???
I would suspect its a clean install as EA's content will no longer exist, meaning it has 33% more content, so the EA we no will no longer exist. With that said, someone corrected me and said it would be a patch, for one reason or another I cant remember. I'm not a techy guy. Just seems to make sense to me it would be a clean install. I uninstalled anyway, so it will be fresh for me.
