We’ve gathered the 1.6 harvest for you!
The first day of Spring has arrived and with it comes a gigantic update for the indie darling farming sim, Stardew Valley. ConcernedApe, the one-man army of a developer, dropped the update after an agonizingly long wait and – oh boy – there is a lot of new content. Here are the highlights for 1.6!
Hats for your cats (and dogs)!
You can put hats on your pets. Oh, that’s right, I said pets. Plural. Not only can you dress up your little guy, but you can obtain more than one pet after maxing out the hearts on your first pet.
There are also two new cat and dog breeds, as well as turtles! ConcernedApe treats us so well.
A brand new farm type
Stardew Valley has always had a pretty diverse set of farms for players to choose from. Each farm comes with its own pros and cons, but the newest farm seems to only come with pros.
The Meadowlands Farm is adorable and gives players a leg up in the early game with a coop and two chickens from the jump. It also includes “a chewy blue grass that animals love”. We can assume that farm animals will gain some benefit from this special blue grass, but what that is exactly is not yet clear.
More in-depth character dialogue
The 1.6 update brings way more character interaction to Stardew Valley than ever before. According to the patch notes, this includes new custom gift reactions, custom flower dance dialogue for acceptances (which includes previously missing dialogue for certain characters), and more general dialogue from shopkeepers.
One especially interesting part of the patch notes states, “dynamic dialogues which react to things that happened”. That is so incredibly vague that it could mean anything! Exciting!
However, those are just a few of the mentioned additions in the patch notes which also mysteriously end with “and more”. This could mean that there’s tons more dialogue in the game that ConcernedApe just didn’t feel like spelling out for everyone.
More festivals!
Festivals are the highlights of the year in Pelican Town. Now there are even more, both major and minor! The Stardew Valley 1.6 update adds the Desert Festival, a major festival, as well as the Trout Derby and SquidFest, which are both mini festivals.
Alongside those three additions is “a new environmental 'event' in the summer."
Small (but exciting) changes in Stardew Valley 1.6
Alongside these large changes are some smaller additions or items that are equally exciting.
- NPCs now have winter outfits
- A bookseller now comes to town twice a season
- Four new home renovations (dining room, attic, expanded corner room, and cubby)
- Gender-specific clothing variants can now be worn by any gender
- Sonar Bobber, which shows the fish on your line before you catch it
- Statue Of Blessings, which grants a random blessing each day
- Text Signs, which can be written on
- Spouse Portraits which can be purchased after reaching 14 hearts
- Mannequins, which can be dressed
- Added 4 new cabin variants
- Added a new rare ambient critter
Additionally, Stardew Valley has eight new achievements, which may or not be hidden. There are plenty of new secrets alongside the new achievements for players to discover, like items and accessories.
All of these new additions, ranging from clothing and furniture to festivals and events, are making the rich world of Stardew Valley even richer. The game has seen a massive increase in players ever since the update, mostly due to the excitement and hype. All we can say is thank you to ConcernedApe for this amazing update!
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