Stardew Valley creator already has plans for his next game

In a rather lovely and cordial Reddit AMA, the creator of Stardew Valley, Eric ‘ConcernedApe’ Barone, discussed his possible next project, revealed that he almost quit making the game, and talked about the things he’s learned during development of Stardew Valley. Barone confirmed that he had a few ideas for his next game but he was reluctant to share too much, saying that, ‘creating hype too far in advance is a lot of pressure, and ultimately I don’t think it benefits anyone.’ 

Barone discussed his approach to the next project, and said that he’ll be going ‘with a similar mindset to Stardew Valley — take a style of game that was never fully realized (or that changed trajectories, leaving unexplored possibilities), and carry on the tradition in my own weird way.’ He expanded on this, saying that the Stardew Valley we see today is quite different from how he thought it would be, and lacks much of the lore and backstory he wanted to implement. As a result his next game will take place ‘on the same planet’ as Stardew Valley, but this time around Barone wants to explore more of that lore he didn’t include.

Barone said that he took ‘a softer approach’ to Stardew Valley, and this method was taken from his inspiration for the game, Harvest Moon. Barone feels by not taking too many risks in the first game it gives him the confidence to push harder, and he said that, ‘with my next game I want to go all out with my ideas, take things to the extreme, create an even richer and more detailed game world.’

He also discussed his thoughts on fans datamining his game to find all the secrets, and he’s surprisingly not too worried by it, saying that, ‘I don’t feel too strongly about it… I’m all for letting people enjoy the game how they want… and if that means figuring out all the secrets in unintended ways, so be it.’

So why did he call it Pelican Town when there are no pelicans? Barone said it’s because he liked ‘the way ‘Pelican Town’ rolls off the tongue, and also it evokes a certain feeling/image in my head that I liked’.

Stardew Valley is out now on Nintendo Switch, PS4, Xbox One and PC.