Since its explosive release last year, Stardew Valley developer Eric Barone and dev partners Chucklefish have been working on two expanded compnonents for the beloved indie farming sim: console releases and multiplayer.
PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions released last December. With the Nintendo Switch version coming soon, we’ve received an update on the big 1.3 patch that will add online multiplayer. Stardew Valley’s multiplayer patch will arrive in early 2018 on PC, Mac, and Linux. It will then roll out to the console versions, beginning with Nintendo Switch.
Thousands of lines of code have been rewritten to retrofit multiplayer into a single player game. Multiplayer will be designed with a single host in mind, with up to three farmhands (players) that can join the game. You can build up to three cabins on your farm to house your farmhands. Each farmhand has their own inventory and can farm, forage, fight, marry, and join events and festivals.
Only the main player/host can trigger festivals, story decisions, and when to sleep for the night.
Separate servers won’t be necessary to run a multiplayer game. Inviting is done through Steam, with a similar mechanic being explored for console versions.
Local multiplayer/split-screen and PvP are not planned. Aspects of multiplayer are still being worked on and implemented, including menus, farmhand cabins, and NPC relationships. One requested feature the developers want to add with the 1.3 patch is marriage between players.
One-man developer Barone partnered with Chucklefish to help publish the game, port it to consoles, and add multiplayer functionality. Over the last year Stardew Valley received a few patches adding new farm types and broader localization.
Stardew Valley is available on PC, Mac, Linux, PS4, and Xbox One. It’s due to arrive on Nintendo Switch later this year. Patch 1.3 is coming Early 2018. Steam users can help beta test multiplayer towards the end of this year.
