Stardew Valley Surprises Players With a Few New Handy Features

Stardew Valley developer Eric Barone -- more commonly known as ConcernedApe -- has surprised players of the RPG meets farming sim with a few new handy features. This week, a new update for the game was released on PC. Right now, there's no word when the update will comes to Nintendo Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S, Xbox Series X, or mobile devices, but what we do have are the patch notes, which in turn reveal the aforementioned features. Barone describes the update as "small" in the patch notes, but not only does it have some new features but  some important technical changes for modders." 

At the moment of publishing, it's unclear how big the file size of the update is, which means we don't know how long it will take to download. It's not massive and doesn't contain any new content, so the file size should be on the smaller side, but, for now, this is just speculation.

Below, you can check out the update's complete patch notes, courtesy of the game's official website:

Architectural changes

• Migrated the game from XNA (targeting .NET Framework 4.5.2) to MonoGame (targeting .NET 5). This futureproofs the game and allows mods to access more than 4 gigs of RAM.
• Made various internal changes for mod authors.

Quality of life changes

• Holding the CTRL key in addition to shift now lets you purchase/craft stacks of 25 items at a time.
• When starting a new save, many settings now default to what they were the last time you played the game. Some settings like zoom level, gamepad mode, and multiplayer server privacy aren't copied over.
• You can now build or move farm buildings onto artifact spots. This destroys the artifact spots.
• You can now nudge pets out of the way while building/moving a building by clicking on them.
• You can now buy back items accidentally sold in the same shopping session.
• The in-game time is now shown on the upper-right hand corner of the screen when playing Journey of the Prairie King in multiplayer.
• Grass placed using Grass Starter during Winter no longer disappears when the game is reloaded (but it still won't grow or spread).

Localization fixes

• Fixed Shane's 6-heart event soft-locking in the Hungarian translation.
• Fixed incorrect backslash characters in various events in the Hungarian localization.
• Fixed typos in the French localization.
• Fixed a typo in Livin' Off The Land that incorrectly states that Super Cucumber can be caught in Winter.

Cosmetic fixes

• Added commas to the price display on the various building construction menus.
• Adjusted collisions in the Calico Desert to avoid a minor sorting issue on the top-left edge of the raised cliffside.
• Fixed issue where Sebastian's sprite would shift into an invalid position at 1:00 PM when he's working on his bike on the farm.

General fixes

• After completing the Cryptic Note quest, subsequently reaching the 100th floor of the Skull Cavern will guarantee a loot chest.
• Fixed an issue where hard mode mines could become permanently enabled.
• The Blacksmith profession now affects Radioactive Bars.
• Garden Pots no longer lose any applied fertilizers when they are harvested from.
• Fixed the explosion radius not being centered when dislodging flooring and certain other types of items.
• When placing a Garden Pot on Ginger Island on a rainy day, it will now spawn with its dirt correctly watered.
• Fixed an issue where moving a cabin with a cellar would cause the stairs to the cellar to warp the players out of bounds for the rest of the play session.
• Fixed a case where entering the Farm from the south on horseback and triggering an event could cause the player to get stuck in a wall.
• Fixed various invisible tiles preventing certain spots in the Mountain lake from spawning fish activity bubbles.
• Fixed the tile holding the plant on Elliott's table not being passable from behind.
• Fixed some tiles on the left side of the beach farm being unbuildable.

Stardew Valley is available via Android, iOS, Nintendo Switch, PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S, and Xbox Series X.