Earlier this year, Stardew Valley’s developer Eric Barone “ConcernedApe” released the supposed final patch 1.6 containing a new farm type, 8-player co-op, and late-game content including many small changes to fully close the chapter.
In a recent interview with PC Gamer, Barone got the opportunity to share his thoughts about the game and its widely received feedback from the playerbase.
"I'm glad people like Stardew Valley so much,” he shared. “The more people enjoy it, the deeper they enjoy it, the happier I get. Well, there is one thing that's a little annoying: If I had known how popular Stardew Valley would be and how many updates and languages it would receive, I would have spent more time up-front to make my life easier to make all these updates.”
Barone primarily follows his intuition to enhance the game while taking into account the feedback he receives from the community. Patch 1.6 was designed to maintain compatibility with Stardew Valley's extensive modding community, allowing players to opt out if it helps preserve their mods.
Barone has always supported modding, but only as long as the canonical lore is not changing, "I am open to mods and I am fine with anyone making any mods they want. Even adjusting and adding to the story: it's not canon. Only the vanilla game is canonical. I don't mind if people want to add their own fan stories to the game, as long as it's clear it's not canon."
The passionate developer also shows no real regrets about how the beloved game came to be. "There were lots of earlier ideas that didn't make it into the final game but I'm okay with that," says Barone. "It felt like that was just the nature of development. I feel like I could keep working on the game forever, every aspect of the game could be enriched. But I've now spent 12 years working on this so at some point you have to move on or focus on something new."
Barone’s sentiments serve as a testament to his unadulterated love for the game he put his heart and soul into. While the Stardew chapter might be closed once and for all, one can hope that a developer as passionate as Barone gets to fill even bigger shoes someday, allowing him the creative autonomy he deserves.
Stardew Valley is an indie role-playing game, but we prefer to call it a ‘relaxation simulator’. It is a farm simulator game where you, the player, inherit your grandfather’s shambled farm and work towards turning it functional. The game provides a very tranquil experience to delve into while enjoying slow relaxing music, simplistic pixel graphics, and an overall calming atmosphere.
