Sometimes all you want out of life is some simple, satisfying farm labor. For those of us who live in cities and have no access to this rural life, there are simulators. One such simulator, Stardew Valley, is going to receive a much-requested update early next year.
The role-playing farm simulation game puts the player in the role of a young employee who flees a boring office job to try to save their grandfather’s dilapidated old farm located in Stardew Valley. Players can plant crops, raise livestock, mine ore, and engage in social activities all while keeping an eye on their energy and health levels.
Of course the game has room for improvement, and there’s a big update in the works. In post on the Stardew Valley website, game developer Chucklefish explained plans for the update. One new feature will be the ability to hire friends on your farm, effectively adding a multiplayer component to the game.
Other improvements that will accompany this update include the ability to build three cabins on your property to house friends, enhanced social interactions, and even player-to-player marriage. The last, in particular, has been consistently requested by players. Split screen, local multiplayer or player vs player will not be available through this update, but you can invite your friends to your farm through Steam. Non-Steam users will hopefully be able to use multiplayer as well, however, how they will do so has not yet been decided.
The updated version of the game will allow other players to move into cabins on your property and start work as farmhands. They will be able to do almost everything that the main player can do, from farming to fighting and even marrying NPCs. Each player will also have their own inventories, which they can access even when the main player is offline through a chest in their cabin.
There are still some decisions only the main character can make, like when to sleep, planning festivals, and whether to switch up the playing style by buying into JojaMart. Apart from these few decisions, all playable characters are equal, and they can even do separate things at once. For example, the main player can be working on upkeep at the farm while a friend heads to the mines to get some ore.
The update will take awhile, so don’t get too excited yet. Chucklefish is anticipating beta release later this year, with the patch for Windows, Linux, and Mac coming in early 2018. In the meantime, a version for the Switch will be released later this year, with the patch to follow sometime in 2018.
H/T Polygon
