Stardew Valley, the hit indie game of 2016, finally made its debut on PS4 and Xbox One this month after winning huge acclaim on PC back in the first quarter. The console release is already winning over an array of new fans, despite some bugs that are already being fixed. And now the game’s major post-release milestones have all been hit: A big content update, Mac and Linux versions and now the console versions. So what’s next for Stardew Valley?
Stardew Valley News: What’s Next After The Console Versions?
From what developer ConcernedApe has told us, Stardew Valley is still going to receive plenty of support henceforth. Indeed, the release of the console versions frees up ConcernedApe (which is, after all, just one guy—although he did hire help for the console ports) to focus on developing new features, at least once the initial console bugs are fixed.
Stardew Valley ’s first major content update post-release, version 1.1, came out this fall and added lots of new features, including some end-game content, new crops, new marriage candidates and new house upgrades. It also added four new farm layouts selectable at the beginning of the game. Chances are other updates will take a similar form and consist of lots of new additions of relatively minor features, with a few bigger surprises and more end-game content.
The biggest new feature that ConcernedApe has hinted at is the addition of Stardew Valley multiplayer. Adding multiplayer is a pretty massive undertaking and would essentially be a new, if fundamentally similar, game mode. Players will, in short, be able to farm together. ConcernedApe has wisely declined to provide any kind of a timetable for the multiplayer update, preferring to keep his options open, but it’s clearly high on his priority list.
Another promised new feature: Stardew Valley for Nintendo Switch. The company canceled the Wii U version, since even Nintendo has basically retired the system already and will instead focus its efforts on the Nintendo Switch—which is going to give us what will almost certainly be the best (slash only) mobile version of Stardew Valley. That alone is pretty exciting.
More than six months after it first came out, Stardew Valley is out on consoles, making the game truly widely available in a way it never was before. And that’s not the end of the game’s lifecycle. It’s only the beginning.
