Many years after release, the iconic farming simulator Stardew Valley reaches new heights of popularity with the 1.6 update.
On March 19, it finally happened: The long-awaited 1.6 update for Stardew Valley went live, bringing tons of new content to the 8-year-old game. Was it all in vain? Far from it! On the day of the patch, player numbers soared to unprecedented heights, setting a new record.
Stardew Valley Almost Hits 150 Thousand Players Milestone
Many AAA games dream of such numbers and often, only multiplayer games achieve so many simultaneous players. In the hours after the 1.6 update went live, Stardew Valley reached a staggering concurrent player number of 146,159 on Steam.
This broke the previous record of 95K in January 2021. At that time, ConcernedApe, the one-man developer behind Stardew Valley, released the last major update, 1.5.
Stardew Valley just can't be killed. People love this game, often playing through it more than once. And when new content regularly arrives, even the oldest Stardew Valley veterans return. But what exactly is this massive update that brings so many players back to an 8-year-old game?
Stardew Valley 1.6 – This Is The New Content
I wasn't exaggerating when I mentioned tons of new content. You can find the complete list of all changes on ConcernedApe's website. The key points are as follows:
- New festivals and events
- Desert Festival
- 2 mini fishing festivals
- environmental sumemr event
- Mastery system, accessed via new area with new perks and items
- New farm type "Meadowlands Farm"
- New NPC dialogues
- multiple pets possible
- Enhanced world map
- New outfits for NPCs
- Tons of new items, crops, objects, animals, pets
- New home renovations
- Visual improvements, such as waterfalls, decorations and graphical overhauls
- Multiplayer changes, such as 8 players on one server
- Balance changes for combat and item prices
- Tons of Quality of Life Changes for planting, fighting and more
By the way, ConcernedApe has recommended starting a new save file for this patch to fully enjoy all the changes. And let's be honest: Stardew Valley can always be started anew, and it just never gets boring.
That won't be a problem and you will see most of the new content that way, but I still might recommend a new file just for fun and to see everything in context
— ConcernedApe (@ConcernedApe) January 26, 2024
The update is currently only available via Steam and GOG. However, the developer has already assured players that a build for consoles is in the works.