"I was just thinking about the time you helped me open a jar of pickles. Remember that? We've come a long way since then."
-Haley (Stardew Valley)
(A letter in your mailbox)
"Greetings, I'm farmer Rain. How are you doing, fellow farmer? I hope you're doing great in your farm. I sent this letter to inform you about something exciting for us Stardew Valley farmer soon. Well, not very soon but it's worth to be anticipated. In early 2018 we will have a multiplayer mode in which we can visit each other's farm, and I'm looking forward to that.
I guess that's it. Have a good day!"
The update for one of the best game from 2016 Stardew Valley is on its way, and will be ready soon. As developer Chucklefish posted on the game's official website, next patch of Stardew Valley has a couple of improvements and nice additions to it, including multiplayer mode. So how will the multiplayer work?
Shortly after waking up in the morning, Robin will offer you to build 3 cabins in your farm. Each of these cabins will house a farmhand, which is your friend that you invited to your farm and you can have 3 friends to be invited.
Your farmhands will live normally in the cabin in your farm and can do almost everything you (or the main player) can do such as farming, mining, fishing, and even marry one of the NPCs, also take part in the festivals.
But the crucial decisions such as when to sleep and when to leave a festival can only be made by the main player. For the inventory, each player will have their own inventory that you can manage through a chest in their cabin when they are offline.
There is something more interesting coming with the multiplayer mode. Chucklefish will happily add player-to-player marriage as a feature thanks to many players who requested such thing. That's the "developer that listens to their fans" for you. But the player-to-player marriage won't requires you to buy a Mermaid's Pendant anymore. The developer is working on a different method that requires similar amount of effort to marry an NPC. Who knows if your story will end up like Kirito and Asuna (Google or just watch it).
You won't need to create a server or something in order to play with your friends, all you need to do is invite them through Steam. And for those who play the non-Steam version of the game is TBD but likely to be the same way as the Steam version. And for now local multiplayer, split screen or PvP options are not in their to-do list.
This multiplayer mode is expected to be available for beta test at the end of the year for Steam version and officially released as patch 1.3 in early 2018 on PC, Mac, Linux, as well as consoles starting from Nintendo Switch. They cannot confirm the exact date yet maybe because (according to Chucklefish dev) it's "notoriously" difficult to create a multiplayer capability in a game that don't have that in the first place. So just keep your plants growing (Who uses watering can these days, right? Sprinkler!) and the chickens happy while you're waiting for it. Happy farming!
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