Stardew Valley’s 1.6 Update Is Out Everywhere—Here Are Some of the Biggest Changes

Updated November 2024: This story has been updated with the new availability of Stardew's 1.6 update.

The popular farming sim and ultimate cozy game Stardew Valley dropped a major update on Tuesday after months of anticipation. Stardew’s 1.6 update has an insane amount of new content that touches every area of the game, from new menus and DIYs, to a new farm layout, new crops, and the ability to have multiple pets and play with seven friends at once. It’s enough updates to make the game feel fresh, but it isn’t so new that you can’t ease back into a beloved farm and toil away.

As of November 4, 2024, the free update is available for players on all platforms. The update was initially only available for PC players using Steam, but it's now available for console and mobile players too. If you don't have the game yet, you can purchase it on Steam for $15 for PC, Linus, and Mac computers, or the shop for your console of choice, like the Nintendo Store ($15) or Xbox Store ($15). You can also purchase it for mobile in the Apple Store ($5) or Google Play Store ($5) to play on your mobile devices. There are no cross-saves, so each platform will have its own files and farms.

As soon as the PC update arrived back in March, I opened up Stardew Valley and started a file with the brand-new farm layout (which has me very broke) to dive right in. The update also works on your existing Stardew files, and I’ve been bouncing back and forth between my brand-new file and a later-game file to see what’s new in different seasons. Everywhere I look, I see something new. Moss to forage off trees! New reactionary dialog from NPCs! A prize machine in the mayor’s house!

If you hate spoilers, I’m honestly not sure why you read this far, but you should definitely stop reading. I’m about to tell you about some of the biggest changes I’ve spotted since playing the updated game.