More than twice as many Stardew Valley players are playing now than in 2016
EVERY main feature in Stardew Valley 1.6 update
It should come as no surprise: Stardew Valley, despite being released in 2016, is still very popular. In fact, it's more popular than ever. Following the Stardew Valley 1.6 update published yesterday, the farm-and-life simulator hit a peak Steam concurrent player count of 147,612 – that's more than double the number of concurrent players at the game's launch in 2016. Stardew Valley's previous Steam records were just under 100,000 players after the 1.5 update launched in late 2020, according to SteamDB. Stardew Valley is the eighth most played game on Steam at the time of writing, just a few thousand players behind Grand Theft Auto 5.
Crucially, this does not include people who own the game through GOG, or people who intend to play on Windows PC through Xbox Game Pass. (Stardew Valley players on console will have to wait a little longer for the update.) While we don't have exact numbers for all players, it's clear that Stardew Valley is bigger than ever.
So what's in the update that keeps everyone coming back to the game? The patch is actually bigger than expected, and the patch notes are very long. There are new festivals, a new farm type specific to animals, new quest lines, a bookseller, and hundreds of new items. That's not to mention the dual multiplayer locations, balance changes, bug fixes, and the secrets and easter eggs not explicitly mentioned in the patch notes.
