Stardew Valley Announces New Changes to the Game
Stardew Valley creator Eric Barone, more commonly known as ConcernedApe, has announced new changes coming to the farming sim with its next update, Update 1.7. While updates for the 10-year-old RPG have considerably slowed down as Barone works on his next game, the solo developer hasn’t cut support for the game completely, and likely won’t for the foreseeable future. To this end, Update 1.7 is in the works. While there remains no word on a release date, Barone has previewed and teased various aspects.
Over on Discord, specifically, Barone revealed three different things to expect from the upcoming update, but he did so in a vague fashion. More precisely, Barone said, “two paths will be extended,” along with “three will become four.” Finally, he said, “the mermaid’s fruit will go free.” Obviously, there are some details missing here, but fans believe the two paths refer to Clint and Sandy, something previously mentioned about the update. Meanwhile, three becoming four is believed to be in reference to a new kid in town, given that there are three currently: Jas, Leo, and Vincent. The last one has stumped fans, though. There are a couple of theories, just nothing unanimous.
What Does It Mean?
“3 100% refers to the farmer’s kid,” writes one fan. “ConcernedApe has already gone on the record saying that he wants to make the children mechanic ‘more interesting.’ It’s also one of the most criticized parts of the game. Having a kid is “fruit of the mermaid’s tree.” You need to marry someone with the Mermaid’s pendant to have a kid. The fruit will go free? The kid will age up enough to eventually leave the farmhouse, ideally as an interactable NPC.”
It’s impossible to reliably extrapolate because the development of each update has been different, but Update 1.6 took over 3 years, and it released in 2024. If Update 1.7 is going to take a similar amount of time, it will release next year. If so, then we should start hearing more about it soon. Much like everything above, though, this is just speculation. Whatever the case, Stardew Valley fans appreciate this new nugget as it gives them exactly that, room to speculate.
“I just love this community and how desperate we are for the tiniest scrap of anything resembling news,” writes a second fan. “ConcernedApe certainly knows what he’s doing with his fanbase.”
What exactly the future of Stardew Valley beyond Update 1.7 will be remains to be seen. Haunted Chocolatier is taking up a considerable amount of time, and there is no word on when it will release. Until then, Stardew Valley as a game and a series is pretty frozen beyond smaller, inconsistent updates. In the meantime, there are plenty of rivals offering something in its space. In fact, one of the best games of 2026 is directly inspired by Stardew Valley.