Eric Barone, better known as Concerned Ape,’s love affair with Stardew Valley is remarkable, though also clearly understandable. achieved huge success with his first and so far only game. Recall that after playing many farming “simulators”, he decided to create a game that had everything that he lacked in those titles, as well as other elements that are common to them, as well as additional elements of exploration. an adventure inspired by Terraria, Minecraft and The Legend of Zelda, among others.

He started its development in 2012 as the only designer, taking over the programming, but also the design of images, animations, scenarios, soundtrack… in short, what 100% of the game is his work. After four years of work (10 hours a day, seven days a week, four and a half years), he published its first version in 2016. It received great reviews from critics and the public, which encouraged Barone to continue working. in it for a few more years.

In theory, development on Stardew Valley ended with the release of update 1.5., one of the most ambitious in the game’s history and, like all the previous ones, free for those who already own the game. Given the large number of new features it contained, he could distribute it as paid DLC, but that would be against his philosophy and the love affair he has with the game and its players. However, at the beginning of this year we got some great news knowing that this update is also coming to Android and iOS.

Stardew 1.6 update is coming. These are mostly changes for modders (which will make modding easier and more efficient). But there is also new game content, albeit much less than 1.5. I’m taking a break from Haunted Chocolatier at the moment to work on it. Then back to HC

— ConcernedApe (@ConcernedApe) April 16, 2023

For some time now, ConcernedApe has been fully involved in the design of Haunted Chocolatier, its long-awaited second game, which still has no estimated arrival date. However, the surprise was over tweet from the Barone himself, in which he gives us great pleasure, that Stardew Valley will have a new update, 1.6. To that end, Barone has taken a hiatus from Haunted Chocolatier development, which he will resume once this update is ready.

In terms of content, it will mainly focus on provide new features for modders, which tells us that we will see new additions for the game, as this community is very active. But that’s not all, as there will also be new game content, although at this point Barone specifies that it will be much less than what 1.5 contains. More precisely, according to one of his replies in the conversation of the same message, new dialogs will be addedalthough at this point we don’t know if this will be the only surprise or if his plans will go further, which I’m keeping my fingers crossed for.