Cheaters beware! If you exploit this glitch in Stardew Valley, you'll have trouble with Mr. Qi.
Cheating is not necessarily seen as a minor offense in most PvP games. Entire championships have been put on hold due to incidents of this nature. However, in single-player games, cheating is almost like a feature. In games like Tomb Raider, Grand Theft Auto, or The Sims, cheat codes allow for loads of fun gameplay.
But even here, there are cheats and exploits that are not intended by the developer. In Stardew Valley, there was a glitch that allowed players to skip a difficult part of the game. Instead of patching out this glitch, the developer decided to handle it differently.
New Cutscene Awaits Players Who Cheat Their Way To Success
With the release of the massive 1.6 patch, Stardew Valley received loads of new content. We got balance updates and gameplay fixes galore. However, ConcernedApe, the dev behind the game, decided to leave a specific glitch in the game and instead added a completely new cutscene that players encounter when they exploit this glitch.
What's the glitch all about? Well, Stardew Valley is an incredibly extensive game. It's not just about farming and socializing; there are all sorts of challenges to face. One of them is located on Ginger Island in the Walnut Room, which players unlock only in the end game. There, you'll find the so-called "Perfection Tracker."
To fill this up to 100%, reaching perfection, players have to spend hours defeating monsters, finding collectibles, and completing quests. Once achieved, players are led to a secret area, the Summit, and rewarded with a heartwarming cutscene. It's the absolute pinnacle in the Stardew Valley playthrough and should ideally only be reached by a few devoted players. Or so it was supposed to be.
Here comes the glitch into play. With certain inputs and a scythe, it's possible to reach the Summit early in the game. Previously, players were rewarded with the same wholesome cutscene meant for legitimate players. Patch 1.6 changed this. If you exploit the glitch now, you'll encounter a completely different scene.
If you're on the Summit unlawfully, Mr. Qi, the mastermind behind the Perfection Tracker, scolds you. All of this takes place in an eerie ambiance, with glitchy images floating through the air. And at the end of the speech he rushes towards the player, and the screen goes black. Subsequently, you wake up in the hospital, which also costs you 500G.
Achieving perfection isn't as simple as it seems. ConcernedApe has once again demonstrated his sense of humor by not just patching out the glitch but addressing the issue with its own acknowledgment, which was likely much more elaborate than a mere bug fix.