Eric Barone’s, better known as Concerned Ape, love affair with Stardew Valley is noteworthy, though it’s also clearly understandable, given the enormous success achieved by his first, and so far only, game. Let’s remember that, after having played many farm “simulators”, he made the decision to create a game that had everything that he had missed in those titles, as well as other elements common to them, and also other exploration elements. , combat and adventure, for which he was inspired by Terraria, Minecraft and The Legend of Zelda, among others.
He began its development in 2012 as the sole designer, assuming the programming, but also the design of the images, the animations, the scripts, the soundtrack… in short, what 100% of the game is his work. After four years of work (10 hours a day, seven days a week, for four and a half years), he released a first version of it in 2016. It received great reviews from critics and the public, which encouraged Barone to continue working. in it for several more years.
In theory, development on Stardew Valley came to an end with the release of update 1.5., one of the most ambitious in the history of the game and, like all the previous ones, free for those who already owned the game. Given the large number of new features it included, he could have distributed it as a paid DLC, but that would have gone against his philosophy and the love relationship he has with the game and its players. However, at the beginning of this year we got great news, knowing that this update was also coming to Android and iOS.
There is going to be a Stardew 1.6 update. It’s mostly changes for modders (which will make it easier & more powerful to mod). But there is also new game content, albeit much less than 1.5. I’m taking a break from Haunted Chocolatier to work on this at the moment. Then back to HC
— ConcernedApe (@ConcernedApe) April 16, 2023
ConcernedApe has been fully involved, for some time now, in the design of Haunted Chocolatier, its long-awaited second game that still doesn’t have an estimated arrival date. However, the surprise has jumped with a tweet from Barone himself, in which he gives us great joy that Stardew Valley will have a new update, 1.6. To that end, Barone has taken a break from developing Haunted Chocolatier, which he will resume when he has this update ready.
Regarding its content, it will focus mainly on provide new features for modders, which tells us that we will see new add-ons for the game, since this community is very active. But that’s not all, since there will also be new game content, although at this point Barone clarifies that it will be much less than that included in 1.5. More specifically, according to one of his responses in the conversation of that same message, new dialogues will be addedalthough at the moment we do not know if that will be the only surprise, or if his plans go further, something for which I cross my fingers.
