Stardew Valley’s latest update has shown just how powerful continued developer support can be for older games.
The farming simulator has soared to new heights on Steam following its most recent patch, reaching a player count that’s nearly two-and-a-half times greater than its previous peak on the Valve platform. On March 23, Stardew Valley hit just over 224,000 concurrent players, according to Steam Charts, flying past its previous peak of 94,000 in December 2020.
The surge in players comes in the wake of the 1.6 Update, which hit live servers on March 20. The 1.6 patch stood out as an especially large update for Stardew, featuring everything from new mechanics, updates to old ones, and massive quality-of-life improvements and bug fixes. With the amount of changes included in this patch, returning players had plenty of incentive to dust off their old save files and jump back into their digital farms.
Lots growing. Screenshot by Dot Esports.
When players around the world booted up their old saves, they were welcomed by an array of new features, including the new Meadowlands Farm type, the Desert Festival and Trout Derby, Turtle pets, and a new Mastery system—just to name a few of the many changes. The 1.6 Update was so large and comprehensive that, in fact, many players praised it as having raised the bar for continued game support in the games industry thanks to developer ConcernedApe’s “level of commitment” and “attention to detail.”
The 1.6 Update went live on PC on March 20 through Steam, GOG, and Xbox Game Pass but is currently unavailable for players on console. We suspect the 1.6 Update will arrive on consoles anywhere from a few weeks to a few months based on the timeline of the 1.5 and 1.4 Updates.
In the meantime, you can check out Stardew Valley’s full 1.6 Update patch notes to see everything new the farming simulator has to offer.
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