Stardew Valley Will Soon Let You Marry Your Real-Life Friends

Stardew Valley has often been accused of being little more than a Harvest Moon rip-off, which isn't entirely unfair. They are very similar, intentionally so. Well, Stardew Valley plans to differentiate itself in a big way, by offering something Harvest Moon has never done – multiplayer.

Multiplayer is something Stardew Valley has been promising for a while, but now publisher Chucklefish has finally provided some concrete details. Here are the basics of how it will work:

"Shortly after you begin the game, Robin will offer to build up to 3 cabins on your farm. Each cabin will house a farmhand, controlled by one of your friends. Farmhands can do almost anything the main player can do. They can farm, mine, fight, fish, forage, marry NPCs and take part in festivals. Each player has their own inventory. When a farmhand is not connected, their inventory can be managed through a chest in their cabin.

Certain decisions can be made only by the main player: when to sleep, when to start and end festivals, and whether to side with Joja, for instance. You won't need to set up a server to run multiplayer. Friends can be invited onto the farm through Steam. The invite mechanism for non-Steam versions is TBD, but likely to be similar in most cases."

Sounds promising! But wait, farmhands can even get married? Does that mean you'll be able to marry other player-controlled characters? You bet!

"A lot of players have requested player-to-player marriage. It's an idea we like a lot, and want to make available as a feature. Player-to-player marriage won't use the mermaid pendant, but rather an alternative method that requires a similar amount of effort to wooing an NPC. We're still working out what that will be."

As somebody who's sunk hundreds of hours into Harvest Moon games over the years, true multiplayer sounds like a real game-changer. Chucklefish is promising Stardew Valley multiplayer will arrive on Steam by the end of the year and consoles in early 2018.

Stardew Valley is available for PC, Mac, Linux, Xbox One, PS4, and Nintendo Switch.