He’s prioritizing new Stardew Valley content updates
After recently announcing that he would begin self-publishing Stardew Valley on all platforms except for Nintendo Switch and mobile, game creator Eric Barone promised more announcements would come soon. Earlier today, he had quite a lot to say about the future of the little farming sim that could.
Most surprising of all, Barone says he plans to create new content for Stardew Valley.
His new game, which is set in “the same universe as Stardew Valley,” is still under wraps. The designer doesn’t want to announce the title until “the concept is fully realized,” and he’s also enjoying the fact that he can contribute to the project “without any [outside] pressure for the time being.”
That mystery game is now “on the back-burner.” Barone admits he can’t seem to keep himself away from Stardew Valley, noting that he continues to think of “new ideas for ways to improve and expand upon the game.” In fact, he “could probably work on [Stardew] for the rest of [his] life.”
Simply put, there isn’t enough time in the day for him to work on both projects at once, and Stardew is the higher priority right now. Barone also says he’s forming a team to help him create future Stardew Valley content. “The update I’m working on right now (1.4) will be another solo update, but after that I hope to have a team in place that I can work closely with on future content,” he explained.
As for fans who are waiting on previously-promised updates, Barone hears you.
I’m aware that saying “I’m working on new content” might be aggravating to those on consoles who don’t have the 1.3 update yet… Or to those on Switch who are experiencing frame rate issues in the new patch. I also haven’t forgotten about the PS Vita users, some of whom have reported bugs to me. It’s very important to me that I make good on my promises… the idea of expanding further while there are still lingering issues and unmet promises disturbs me, and isn’t something I want to be doing.
So I want to make it clear that these issues are my top priority, and if there’s ever anything I can do to help these things happen more quickly, it takes precedence over any new content… however, I don’t do those ports myself, they are done by Sickhead Games, so there’s nothing I can personally do to have an effect on that process, beyond setting it into motion (Sickhead Games does great work, by the way… and they are making very fast progress on the console updates). I am also doing what I can to see the issues with Switch multiplayer get fixed, but that is also not something I can directly accomplish. So when I do work on new content, it’s only when I have no current avenue for addressing these higher priority issues.
I’ll be bummed if the next game never ends up seeing the light of day, but I’m still very into Stardew Valley and can’t say I mind that its creator is passionate enough to continue working on updates.
What’s In Store For Stardew Valley [Stardew Valley]
