Stardew Valley 1.6 is still chugging along, says creator, after a month of "self-imposed" crunch

Stardew Valley developer Eric "ConcernedApe" Barone has emerged from a month of silence to say that he has made "a ton of progress" on the upcoming 1.6 update for the beloved indie farm and life sim.

"It's (self-imposed) extreme crunch mode, nose to the grindstone," said Barone in a post to Twitter/X.

Barone also dropped a rare teaser for the update's "many additions", one of few we're likely to get. Barone has in the past expressed a preference for keeping the content of updates to Stardew Valley secret, something he reiterated in his post: "Keeping mostly everything secret."

The teaser? A screenshot including a new "Big Chest" that's pretty much exactly what you think it is. "It can store almost twice as much as a regular chest," says the description in the screenshot. Which makes sense to me, since bigger chests is one of the mods that basically everyone installs. They'll work with your craft benches, too, so you'll not only have fewer chests around them but a larger reserve of material to draw from in that space.

The big chest will join things we already knew are coming in the larger-than-expected update 1.6: Iridium Scythe, hats on dogs,  festivals, and more dialogue.

The size and scope of update 1.6 for Stardew is something nobody really expected, given that Stardew Valley was supposed to be finished even before the massive 1.5 update added a whole new island and endgame to the already beloved indie. Yet Barone keeps working on it, something he spoke to in a reply to a question.

"So many people are still playing it," he said. "and many new poeple [sic] every day, I want it to be the best it can be, It will never be perfect but I feel an urge to keep improving it. Up to this point its been my life's work and I care a lot about it."

Stardew Valley's 1.6 update has no firm release date. As with many things created without the pressure of pleasing investors and shareholders, it'll probably be released when it's done. Shocking, I know.