Stardew Valley breaks its Steam player record with gigantic 1.6 update

The hype is real.

Center of Desert Festival in Stardew Valley
Screenshot by Dot Esports

Stardew Valley has finally welcomed its 1.6 update and alongside these major changes to the game, it has now crushed the previous highest concurrent player count it had on Steam.

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More than 145,000 players are enjoying Stardew Valley on Steam at the time of writing according to stats site SteamDB. This figure completely destroys the previous record which stood at 94,000 set in 2021. In fact, this concurrent player number has been climbing, so we expect it will go even higher than where it’s at right now.

The Stardew Valley 1.6 update logo.
Everyone is returning home. Image via ConcernedApe

Historically Stardew Valley has been able to maintain most of its playerbase after peaking so we’d expect it to remain as one of Steam’s top games for a while. Of course, the release of this new update is solely responsible for this influx of gamers.

It’s no surprise that players were excited about Stardew Valley update 1.6. The game, which first launched in 2016, has since become one of the most popular titles across every platform it’s available on and there are no signs of slowing down now. While PC gamers are relishing the changes to Stardew Valley with this update, 1.6 isn’t yet available on console or mobile, so once this happens we expect a similar playerbase spike to take place too.

This latest addition to the game brings a new farm and features for players to explore and interact with. There are even new outfits and dialogue for townsfolk, so if you’re someone who has played Stardew Valley before now is the time to get back into it.

If you’re eager to try out Stardew Valley the game is available across all major console and mobile platforms, but again, these won’t yet have access to update 1.6. For those who want to explore the new version of the game, the update is now live on PC, Linux, and Mac right now.

Author
Image of Ryan Galloway
Ryan Galloway
Ryan is a Senior Staff Writer for Dot Esports who has been working at GAMURS since 2020. He covers a wide variety of titles from across the gaming space, with a focus on Pokémon. He boasts a degree in Journalism from Murdoch University. Email: ryan@dotesports.com