If you’ve been holding your breath for the announcement of Stardew Valley update 1.6 then you might be out of luck. Stardew Valley creator, ConcernedApe was answering questions on Twitch after the first ever Stardew Valley Cup when the topic of future updates came up. Concerned Ape, known in real life as Eric Barone, said that he won’t ever completely rule out the possibility of another update to Stardew Valley, but that right now he’s focused on his next game.
This talk about the future was brought about by a fan asking if there will be any other marriage candidates in the future. Many fans would love it if all of the adults in the game could be marriage candidates. While ConcernedApe did say that he has 2 existing NPCs in mind for giving them the marriage treatment, it isn’t something he’s working on right now. He explained that making everyone a marriage candidate would be “just a ton of work.”
“That’s the main reason why I haven’t added more people,” he said.
“To have someone become a marriage candidate, that means I have to add a lot of dialogue and at least two more events, and those events take a lot of time. It may seem like it’s not that big of a deal, but they take a huge amount of time. There’s a lot of other stuff – you have to make the spouse room. There’s just a lot to it. So that’s the reason why I haven’t just added more marriage candidates. But there’s no reason why I’m opposed to having more. I think it would be fun.”
Personally, I’m quite happy with Harvey, who is clearly the best spouse….for me at least. But I can understand why people want to marry more of them. Each NPC is just so well made and fun to be around…except Clint. I think it would be fun to marry the Wizard. Who knows what kind of trouble that could lead to.
But, if I had one update that I really want to see added to the game it would be making it so your family can come stay with you on your island farm. Honestly, I never use my farm except for quick day trips every few days for this very reason. I didn’t marry Harvey and have his babies just to run off to a deserted island and grow bananas. To me it feels like the one thing the game is really lacking.
Anyway…that wasn’t all the news from the Q&A session with ConcernedApe. He also talked a little bit about his new game. “I may announce it fairly soon, what it is – no-one knows at this point,” he said. “What I will say is it’s another pixel art game, a top-down perspective similar to Stardew Valley. And in some ways it is kind of similar to Stardew Valley, but it’s not a farming game. It’s something different.”
So far details about the two games he is working on have been pretty sparse. We know that one of the games will take place in the Stardew Valley world while the other one will likely be tied in to Stardew Valley in some way. We also know that he wants his new games to be an improvement on Stardew Valley in every way. Though I question how you improve from perfection. Which of the new games was he talking about during the Q&A? We simply don’t know at this point. We’re going to have to wait and see. Personally, I have my wallet and heart ready for the day the announcement comes. Which I will also share here, of course.
For now though, I’ll keep playing Stardew Valley and enjoying all the amazing Stardew Valley challenges that the community has come up with.
If you’re interested in watching the full Q&A or even the full Stardew Valley Cup you can watch it here. The competition ends at 3:33:50 if you want to skip to the end.
It is a little bit sad to hear that Stardew Valley might actually be done. But, the game was released in 2016 and it isn’t going away. So really, I don’t think anyone can complain. As of 2020 10 million copies of Stardew Valley have been sold. I only account for 3 of those copies at the moment, but if I ever get a console you can be sure I’ll be buying another copy. I think Stardew Valley will always be one of those games that I keep coming back to when I’m looking for something to play and I know I’m not alone in that sentiment.
Over on my Youtube channel, I started playing the California Challenge. I didn’t make it very far into the challenge though before my attention was called to other games like Ashes of Creation and Orcs Must Die! 3. Still, the next time I’m looking for a relaxing casual game, you can be sure I’ll be picking up Stardew Valley.