After years of agricultural anticipation from countless fans, the long-awaited 1.6 content patch for Stardew Valley has officially launched today and needless to say, it’s very, very big. That is if the full Stardew Valley 1.6 patch notes are anything to go by, which ConcernedApe released in tandem with the patch update.
If you’re wondering what all awaits you when diving back into the world of Stardew, here is our handy guide for the full 1.6 patch notes and the biggest highlights from each section of updates.
Patch Notes for Stardew Valley 1.6 & Big Highlights
The patch notes released by ConcernedApe for Stardew Valley 1.6 are perhaps some of the biggest and most detailed we’ve ever seen, and it’s easy to tell that this was an update crafted with intensely devoted care. The sheer amount of QoL changes and adorable additions are more than enough to bring Stardew fans far and wide back to Ferngill.
Rather than list the hundreds of updates provided upon launch today, we’ve decided to note the biggest highlights from each sector of gameplay. Also, due to the sheer amount of miscellaneous bug fixes listed, those are not mentioned.
Of course, if you’d like to read the patch notes in its grand entirety, feel free to do so here.
New Content & Features (Highlights)
- A new 3-day Desert Festival (bus needs to be unlocked to access the Desert)
- Mastery System which provides new powerful perks and items
- New Farm Type: Meadowlands Farm (comes with a coop, 2 Chickens, and blue feed grass)
- New pets available (after getting max hearts with starter pet).
- Dogs and cats can wear hats. (very important)
- World Map for Ginger Island now available
- World Map now shows your actual, real-time location instead of a fixed point in each area
- New prize machine in Mayor Lewis’ house that provides rewards for completing quests and special requests.
- Bookseller NPC comes to town twice per season.
- Four new Crops (can’t be store purchased) and two new Giant Crops
- Dozens of new items (recipes, furniture, machines, clothing, etc)
- More chests in Skull Cavern
Visual Improvements (Highlights)
- More decorations during seasonal events (Halloween, Christmas, etc)
- World Map has been “redrawn” to be more accurate and detailed
- New animated wildlife in various areas
- Jellies/Pickles/Wines/Juices are now colored according to their ingredients
- Various lighting improvements around the map
- Night now comes 1 hour earlier in the Winter
Multiplayer Changes (Highlights)
- Can now have up to 8 players on PC
- Improvements to multiplayer performance and stability; same build number is required between players
Balance Changes (Highlights)
- Weapons found in the wild now have a chance to come with a basic “innate enchantment”, which can be re-rolled if desired at the Forge with a Dragon Tooth
- Grass now survives in the Winter, but it won’t spread, and cutting it during that season is less effective.
- Mushroom Cave now comes with a free Dehyrdrator
- Recipe skill requirements adjusted for certain tools/machines (e.g. – foraging, fishing)
- Most home renovations now cost money, which is refunded if you undo the renovation. If you try to undo a pre-1.6 renovation for free funds, it will not work.
- There’s now a small chance to find cosmetic items and other goodies while doing random tasks.
- Train cars will now drop Hardwood as well; Santa’s train will now drop gifts
- Gift tastes for various NPCs have been adjusted
- The ‘area of effect’ (AoE) of downward melee attacks has been extended
- When knocked unconscious you no longer lose the Golden Scythe, Infinity weapons, etc. You also can’t lose more than three items, and money lost now scales to what you currently have.
Quality of Life Improvements (Highlights)
- If Pam doesn’t come to drive the Bus for any reason, she now leaves a sign informing you and you can drive yourself to the desert.
- Audio improvements such as more positional sounds, and music “fading in/out” rather than abruptly cutting off.
- Daily billboard quests now have a more informative tracker notification when you make progress on them.
- Emptying a fish pond with fish still in it will cause the remaining fish to flop out of the pond.
- You can now “strafe” while charging a watering can or hoe, allowing you to reposition your tool hit area without changing your facing direction.
- Notification messages in the bottom-left corner now last 50% longer before going away.
- Robin’s building menu now shows how many days a building will take.
- Marnie’s animal shop now centers the camera on an appropriate building when purchasing an animal.
- Shops now have a slight delay before you can buy/sell items, to help avoid double-clicks doing it accidentally.
Other Misc Changes (Highlights)
- Adventure Guild now stays open until 2am.
- Gender-specific clothing variants can now be worn by any gender.
- The “Organize” button now sorts items in a more intelligent way.
- The ‘About’ page now shows the build number.
- Fixed some NPC schedules that weren’t previously applied
Patch 1.6 for Stardew Valley is now live and available to download on all platforms. ConcernedApe has actually recommended that players start a completely new save in order to experience everything the new update has to offer.
That concludes our guide for the full 1.6 patch notes in Stardew Valley. We hope you found this helpful and informative, and let us know how you’re enjoying the new content so far.
Be sure to check out all of our other guides for Stardew Valley, such as how to get clay.
