ConcernedApe Admits He Won't Close The Book On Stardew Valley, Cites He'll "Always Have A Desire To Come Back"

It's been almost nine years following the release of the casual farming sim Stardew Valley, and the game continues to garner critical acclaim, more platform releases, and new content over the years. While the game continues to receive support in the form of Quality-of-Life (QoL) updates, game adjustments and optimizations, not much is known about the future of Stardew Valley until now, at least.

Stardew Valley's creator Eric "ConcernedApe" Barone sat down with NPR for an interview, which was published on 24th January 2025, where he spoke about the game's development, its success, and the developer's relationship with the player base. ConcernedApe also discussed the future of Stardew Valley, given that he's currently working on his next project, Haunted Chocolatier, and why continued support for Stardew Valley won't stop any time soon.

Haunted Chocolatier is ConcernedApe's forthcoming project, which was first announced in October 2021, after the creator had worked for ten years on Stardew Valley's development at that point in time. Stardew Valley continued to receive plenty of support through Quality-of-Life (QoL) updates, game adjustments, and optimizations, which saw new content being added and the game's availability on other platforms, which saw releases for mobile devices and eventually for consoles.

While ConcernedApe had been working on Stardew Valley for "over 12 years," which includes the game's development time, as he and his team of developers continue work on Stardew Valley, he was asked in an NPR interview whether he could envision himself being "done with this game," viewing the game as "complete?" He responded that while a game can certainly "have too much content," he wishes Stardew Valley "to be the best game it can be."

"So if I feel like it's starting to become kind of overwhelmed with content to the point where it's detrimental to the game's entertainment factor, I would stop at that point," ConcernedApe elaborated. Expressing that he wants to create and develop more than one game in his career, he "don't want to definitively say that the book is ever closed, because I think I will always have a desire to come back and maybe add a thing or two," continuing that "maybe even 50 years from now" he may add more content to the game.

He concluded his comments on the future of Stardew Valley, adding that he likes "creating things" and doesn't see himself "ever going to retire. "I think it would be funny to release an update when I'm, like, 90 years old — if I live that long," which we hope so too!