Stardew Valley
Your grandfather left you a run-down farm, and in Stardew Valley your job is to bring it back. You plant crops, live through four seasons of 28 days each and take goods to the town's Community Center to bring it back to life.
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Eric Barone had a computer science degree, couldn't find an industry job and became an usher at the Paramount Theatre in Seattle. He started Stardew Valley to sharpen his skills, and over five years he wrote the code, drew the art and made the music all by himself.
His model was Harvest Moon. Barone felt the series had kept getting worse after Back to Nature and that no entry had brought everything together. That is what he set out to fix. And in July 2024 he swore "on the honor of my family name" never to charge for DLC or updates.
Some reviewers criticised the thin tutorial, and one was bothered by imprecise controls. By February 2026 it had sold more than 50 million copies. Players leave 98% positive out of 903,482 reviews, critics give it 89 on Metacritic. By our Recommended Score it is #13 of 4,736 games.
Liked it? Try STORY OF SEASONS: Friends of Mineral Town, a remake of the 2003 Game Boy Advance Harvest Moon, itself a retelling of Back to Nature, and Fields of Mistria, where you rebuild a town after an earthquake and magic can grow crops in an instant.
Major updates
Stardew Valley 1.6 Update Available now! · Mar 2024All 3
System requirements
Minimum 2 GB RAM · 500 MB✓Steam Deck VerifiedMin & recommended
| Minimum | |
|---|---|
| OS | Windows Vista or greater |
| Processor | 2 Ghz |
| Memory | 2 GB |
| Graphics | 256 mb video memory, shader model 3.0+ |
| DirectX | 10 |
| Storage | 500 MB |
From the game’s Steam store page.
