Stardew Valley’s solo creator is hiring a team to create new content
Stardew Valley’s ConcernedApe isn’t ready to move on from the game just yet.
ConcernedApe, the sole developer of Stardew Valley, had an announcement to share with fans of the popular indie farming game over the weekend. The kicker? He’s bringing additional workers on to help create new Stardew Valley content in the future.
The intrepid indie developer, whose real name is Eric Barone, revealed on the official Stardew Valley blog that, in addition to his previously-announced plans to self-publish the game on various platforms, he’ll be continuing to work on new content for the game and even bringing new people on board to help.
“For a while, I considered being finished with Stardew Valley altogether,” he wrote. “But that would make me (and many others) sad. So I’ve decided that I’m going to form a team to help me work on future Stardew Valley content. The update I’m working on right now (1.4) will be another solo update, but after that I hope to have a team in place that I can work closely with on future content.”
The jump to working with a team certainly comes as a surprise, but so does the fact that he’s readily changing gears to focus solely on Stardew Valley. Barone has been hard at work on a new game “for a while,” he stated.
“I’ve been deliberately secretive about it because I want to be able to work on it without any pressure for the time being,” he explained. “I also want to make sure the concept is fully realized before revealing anything, because once it’s out there, I’m going to have to fully commit to it.”
With that revelation, he referenced statements in the past where he had made overtures to potentially devoting all his time to the new game and focusing on that rather than Stardew Valley. It appears that is no longer the case, as Barone will does always come back to Stardew Valley, “getting new ideas for ways to improve and expand upon the game.” He’s going to continue making additional content for Stardew Valley, and has in fact put his new game on the backburner in favor of a new, free content update for the simulation game.
In addition to working on a new content update, Barone has stated that he will be working on issues with the Nintendo Switch’s multiplayer options, the PS Vita port, bringing the French, Korean, Italian, and Turkish translations to market, and resolving the frame rate issues in the latest patch. Those issues are his “top priority,” as he works in tandem with Sickhead Games, the developer assisting with ports. Barone makes it very clear in his blog that he only works on new content when he has no real way to make additional progress on resolving “higher priority” issues like these.
Barone is looking to post additional updates about his thoughts on making the jump from solo developer to a team in the future, as well as what fans can expect from him in terms of new Stardew Valley content. It certainly seems as though the future is bright for the popular indie title.