8 years after launch, Stardew Valley is still breaking records with a new peak concurrent player count just hours after the 1.6 update release
Mar. 20, 2024There’s a lot of new content now in the farming sim
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
Following the 1.6 update, more people are playingStardew Valleyon Steam than ever before, breaking records eight years after its initial release.
On March 19, Stardew Valley fans finally got what they’ve been waiting for - theStardew Valley 1.6 update. There’s been a lot of speculation over the last few months about what exactly developer ConcernedApe was planning for the update but it’s turned out to be bigger than anyone was anticipating.
You can find the full patch noteshere, but to give you an idea of the kind of things fans are now getting to experience, we’ve got: Three new festivals, a ‘mastery’ system, a new farm type, new NPC dialogue, new crops, more pet types, a ton of new items, new achievements, the ability todrink mayonnaise, and so much more. It’s basically given the farming sim a new lease of life.
All of this new content has encouraged players to get back to tending to their farms as Stardew Valley’s player count has gone through the roof very quickly after the update’s launch. According toSteamDB,Stardew Valley reached a new peak concurrent player count on Steam just a few hours after the bulky update.
It’s not just ConcernedApe that’s been working hard on the 1.6 update. Following the update’s release, it was revealed thatthe creator of Stardew Valley’s best mod worked with Eric Barone on update 1.6, and has already released a compatibility patch. A few weeks ago, the developer behind Stardew Valley Expanded reassured its fans thatthe mod won’t affect the upcoming update- and now we know why.
If you’re worried that this is the game’s last big content overhaul;Stardew Valley’s creator doesn’t think he’ll ever “officially close the book” on the farming sim.
Sign up to the GamesRadar+ Newsletter
Weekly digests, tales from the communities you love, and more
After studying Film Studies and Creative Writing at university, I was lucky enough to land a job as an intern at Player Two PR where I helped to release a number of indie titles. I then got even luckier when I became a Trainee News Writer at GamesRadar+ before being promoted to a fully-fledged News Writer after a year and a half of training. My expertise lies in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, cozy indies, and The Last of Us, but especially in the Kingdom Hearts series. I’m also known to write about the odd Korean drama for the Entertainment team every now and then.
Stardew Valley 1.6 has brought a sense of excitement and discovery back to Pelican Town, and I’m losing myself to it all over again
Stardew Valley creator says he had his reasons to announce Haunted Chocolatier so early, and “if I don’t post for a while, it doesn’t mean I have abandoned the game”
Henry Cavill breaks silence on Warhammer TV show and teases the amount of work that’s already been put into the project
