Ah, Stardew Valley, one of the highest-selling indie titles of all time, a personal favourite of mine, and also a key factor for the influx of cosy farming sims over the last ten years. The passion project of solo developer ConcerenedApe aka Eric Barone, quickly became a beloved gem among casual and seasoned gamers alike, with later cooperative gameplay solidifying it as a game that needed to be played, whether alone, with friends or like me, both (multiple times over). It’s a game that even when developing his next title, Haunted Chocolatier, Barone keeps coming back to and updating for free. Be it the hugely anticipated multiplayer addition in update 1.3, 1.4’s extra content additions, or the huge 1.5 update introducing the late-game area Ginger Island. These along with localisations, quality of life improvements, and optimisations have only increased Stardew’s appeal and nurtured the playtime by hundreds of hours.

With 1.6 comes a plethora of additions that, like the updates of the past, give both a large incentive to continue a long-time playthrough, or present multiple new reasons to start a fresh save file all over again. New festivals, new interactions, a brand new endgame skill mastery system, and most (un)importantly 8 new achievements for fiends such as myself to spend countless hours grinding for. Bug fixes, multiplayer and balance changes, localisation and visual improvements are all welcome additions as always, even if they prevent certain fan-favourite exploits, and anyone who cheesed their way into the 100% ending cutscene without achieving said task, will now be violently beaten by Mr Qi. I’m not kidding.

Let’s start with the two major new skill-based additions. Books are here and once found and read, provide a unique permanent upgrade to your character. They cover almost every aspect of the game, with some providing small, almost unnoticeable changes like a 25% decrease in bomb damage, or a little extra speed when riding a horse, while others are incredibly useful such as “The Diamond Hunter” giving any rock a chance to drop diamonds. They can be acquired in a plethora of different ways, the most obvious one being the new Bookseller who appears twice a month in Pelican Town’s upper right area. You can also find them hidden around the valley, sold by other shopkeepers like Marnie or Dwarf, and sometimes will just drop from doing a certain action (or not drop in the case of me looking for “Woody’s Secret”). They’re a fun and useful addition without being too overpowered and provide another set of collectable unlocks to read and discover.

Alongside the unique skill-unlocking books are a set of others that simply provide experience points in a given field, such as fishing, combat or farming. These help players speed up the levelling process and are also a great way to quickly reach brand-new Mastery Skills. Once you’ve gotten level ten in the five skills, you’ll be able to hoard even more experience and use it for an additional end-game set of final Mastery ranks, attainable in the forest part of the Valley. The ranks correspond to a skillset and they each have some very, very nice unlockable crafting recipes, tools and attributes. I won’t spoil all of them but let’s just say that there’s a new best fishing rod, buff-giving statues, and an Iridium Scythe which may be the most satisfying addition to any game ever. These new skills are yet another great change that keeps longtime players coming back and lengthening savefiles even further.

Three new festivals, that being two pretty tame fishing events, and another rather cool multiple-day Desert Festival add yet more excitement over a given year in the valley. The fishing events consist solely of catching a certain type of fish to gain rewards, and to be honest, they’re not very exciting ones, but that’s speaking from an endgame perspective so perhaps my view is a little too based on being deftly stacked on mid-game items. The Desert Festival however is great and feels like the perfect use for an oftentimes neglected Desert area. The Adventurers guild rewards you with event currency for venturing into a modified Skull Caverns which makes this the first festival to incorporate combat/mining. Similar to the Night Market, the event goes on for multiple days, however, with the Night Market showcasing shopkeepers and exclusive NPCs, this event feels like it was curated by the beloved members of the Valley. Emily and Sandy set up a makeover station if you want some new threads, Willy has a fishing challenge in the pond, and each day you can buy exclusive items sold by your favourite valley natives, like Alex who sells a Trinket which makes your hair change colour constantly.

But Eddie, I hear you shouting through the screen, what the hell is a trinket!? Well in 1.6 after achieving Combat Mastery (mentioned previously), you unlock a Trinket slot, as well as the ability to discover said trinkets that help primarily with battling monsters. From a lil’ Frog that eats enemies to a Fairy that constantly heals you, these trinkets add a fair bit of survivability to end-game tasks such as Qi’s challenging mine-based quests. Especially as one of them requires the use of no healing items, but allows the Fairy to be equipped. There aren’t many of these trinkets but they’re pretty sweet and make the combat system feel just that bit more like a fleshed-out RPG mechanic. You’ll find them naturally when mining/fighting (once they’re unlocked).

Farming-wise, you’ve got a new farm layout to start with, “The Meadowlands”, which features a coop, two chickens and BLUE GRASS. This new setup is clearly to support an ‘Animal Husbandry’ oriented playstyle, which is cool, especially considering the shortcut you’re given to not only having a farm building but two animals from the get-go. There are four new crops, one for each season that bridge a gap between foragable and growable by having the seeds for a given crop found in tillable ground across the Valley. Homewise, If you thought your single pet was getting lonely now you can have multiple, and if you thought your chests didn’t have enough space in them, you can now replace them with ‘Big Chests’ that have rather generous storage capacity.

You’ll find that trees across the map might look slightly different, maybe with more green on their trunks than usual. Smacking that green off the trees provides you with a new key resource, Moss. Moss is used in a bunch of crafting recipes, many of which are late-game, as well as a few new cooking recipes. While you’ll pick up some of the stuff naturally over time, there is a weather phenomenon, Green Rain which covers the entire Valley in a moss blanket for one random day in Summer, providing you with a huge amount of Moss to spend your day collecting. As well as being pretty useful, this event looks gnarly as hell, being the biggest visual change to the Valley other than the seasons themselves.

Before rounding out I’ll comment on a few smaller things like Townsfolk now having winter clothes which is just nice isn’t it, I’m glad the elderly members of Pelican Town now have a decreased chance of freezing to death. They also now respond to specific Items they may love receiving, for instance, Haley reminisces on sunny weather when gifted a coconut. Speaking of gifting, there are some new furry friends to help out in the woods, in the form of unlimited mini-bundles (akin to the community centre). This is started after a woodland critter decides to move in below your farm and refresh a week after completing.

I’ve put in a good extra 50 Hours into the game because of this update. I’m always glad to have a reason to return to Pelican Town, and this is a damn good one. My only wish now is that Barone focuses on Haunted Chocolatier, his next title, as I’m sure we’ll see another side to his talent and creativity outside of the valley. I understand however that he also has a deep love for the world he’s created and it’s seen time and time again as he comes back to add even more content that we don’t deserve. Praise be to the Ape.