Stardew Valley
5 Games That Have Been Critical to The Nintendo Switch’s Early Success
Stardew Valley had been around for roughly a year before it launched on the Nintendo Switch, and people loved it. The farming game felt like a spiritual successor to the traditional Harvest Moon games, bringing players away from the city and down the valley of, well, Stardew Valley. Players can create their own avatar and live life the way they see fit. Despite being a farming sim, there is a lot more depth than simply planting and selling crops; you could go out and mine for gems or sell fish to make a living – it all boils down to how you want to play.
Before launching on the Nintendo Switch, Stardew Valley was only playable on the PC, PS4, and Xbox One. Sure, they’re great platforms, but they lacked one thing the Nintendo Switch offered: portability. Stardew Valley is one of those games that you can literally sink hours into when you’re managing farms, caring for livestock, wooing a townsperson, or just lazing the day away. With the Nintendo Switch, you can literally take your farm with you wherever you go, letting you continue right where you left off, be it on the bus or in bed.
Overall, the option to pick up and play worked extremely well with Stardew Valley, making it the most globally downloaded game on the Nintendo Switch in 2017. And, yes, it even topped Minecraft.