Image: ConcernedApe
Stardew Valley’s next update adds more late-game content, three festivals, lots of new dialogue and more.
The farming sim that won’t stop getting bigger is about to get a little bigger. Developer Eric ‘ConcernedApe’ Barone announced today that Stardew Valley’s highly-anticipated 1.6 update will arrive on March 19, bringing tons of new content to the beloved game just one month after its eight-year anniversary.
According to Barone, the game has sold over 30 million to date and is, “thriving more than ever,” with a new update and official cookbook both planned for release this year, and a worldwide concert tour already underway.
Stardew Valley’s 1.6 update arrives in March with loads of new content
Stardew Valley is eight years old today, but that doesn’t mean its developer Eric Barone is done releasing new updates for the farm life sim. A 1.6 patch has been confirmed to launch on March 19 for PC platforms, with a console and mobile release to come later. Thanks to earlier hints Barone dropped on its content, we know that the patch was once meant to make the game simpler to mod, but has ballooned quite a bit in scope over the last two years.
This is a pretty big patch, but players won’t need to create a new save file to see all of its added content. The 1.6 update is expected to add one major town festival in addition to two new ‘mini festivals’, more late-game content to expand on player skills, more items and crafting recipes, 100+ new lines of dialogue, winter outfits for all villagers, a new farm type and support for eight-player multiplayer. The update will also add Joja-specific alternative endings to certain quests, new rewards for billboard requests and more secrets for players to uncover.
How Barone managed to squeeze this much out of a patch meant to improve modding remains a mystery. Barone is also working on another sim game called Haunted Chocolatier, which puts players in charge of running a confectionary store. Much like Stardew Valley, players will be able to pursue relationships with the townsfolk (living and dead) and hunt down monsters in their spare time. Barone has stated in the past that he rotates between working on new content for Stardew Valley and developing Haunted Chocolatier when he can, but the latter game is likely still far from release.