Ten years old today, Stardew Valley has evolved from its release as a genre defining take on Harvest Moon’s then stale formula into a shining example of post-release support, an incredible multiplayer game, and one of the most important indie games ever made. ConcernedApe envisioned the farming sim he wanted to play, designed and developed it over many years, and released a game that would organically grow to sell over 50 million copies across every major platform. Stardew Valley is not only my 2016 Game of the Year, it’s one of my favorite games of all time.
I just had the pleasure to finish my first ever Perfection run this year alongside my kids. My children were also there when I bought Stardew Valley on Steam the literal minute it was released. This has been such a special game for our family, we have in total over 1000 hours of playtime on Steam and even more on Switch and mobile. It has brought us closer together playing multiplayer and shown me my older son has the skills to be a great project manager. I just sat back while he delegated the steps for the game’s Community Center and Perfection requirements.
My history with the game goes back even further than release though, I was there in early September 2012 when the game was announced on the Steam Greenlight platform. At the time, Steam was somewhat closed to indie games, so Greenlight was created to allow users to vote on future Steam releases. The moment I saw the game I immediately clocked it as a “Harvest Moon clone,” perhaps a bit crude but it was meant in love. The PC platform simply didn’t have games like Harvest Moon 64 or Friends of Mineral Town available, Stardew Valley finally gave us classic farming sim fans some hope.
I reached out to ConcernedApe later that day on Twitter and he followed me back! At the time I was trying to decide what to do with my game critic hobby. I was becoming burned out doing it for fun but still wanted to help indies whenever possible, but within just a few months I was done writing, outside of naming my favorite games of 2015 just a few days before Stardew Valley released. In a way it seems inconceivable that a game that has been so important to my family and me has never even been brought up here, but that’s what happens when the site falls fallow for a decade.
Stardew’s launch really was everything I was hoping for: a modern take on Harvest Moon, a series I’ve been playing since the 90s. Over the years I had become jaded with the direction Harvest Moon had gone, I’ve never thought that the classic grid farming worked in 3D, and doing simple chores such as watering plants in A Wonderful Life became a pain. Before Stardew Valley, my favorite in the series was Friends of Mineral Town, the ultimate farming sim for sicko optimizers like me. You had grid-based farming in 2D, a randomized mine focused on digging deeper, and dozens of fish to catch across all the seasons. You can even hire the local elves to help with your farming, does it all sound familiar? Rune Factory 4 also scratched the itch with its hilarious item balancing animations, but those games had released in 2003 and 2013 respectively, the world was ready for a fresh take on the original formula.
For as many updates as Stardew Valley has gotten in the last 10 years (count them: six major with one incoming, along with about 50 minor updates for bug fixes), the game arrived fully formed. From day one it felt like the proper sequel to Friends of Mineral Town I had been longing for for over a decade. Farming was intuitive and fast, the mine felt endless, and the town was filled with a great cast and seemed active and alive. Not to mention the bachelors and bachelorettes in the valley mostly look and act like young adults, a real problem I had with Story of Seasons (what Harvest Moon had been renamed to in the US by then) and Rune Factory at the time.
As multiplayer wasn’t available at launch, my first solo farm was full of discovery and wonder. There wasn’t a wiki to crawl yet so unlocking the Community Center, the game’s initial main goal, was a true test of tracking and investigation. I had to fish everywhere in every season, head blindly into the mines, and listen carefully to townspeople to get a sense for their likes and dislikes. I found a bunch of reddit posts I made near launch and it’s such a delight reliving some of those memories. In my first farm I married Leah and finished the Community Center sometime in year two.
With all the updates Stardew Valley has received, the game has only gotten better since release. Along with hundreds of quality of life improvements, he added marriageable candidates, new festivals and secrets, and Ginger Island, which is basically part two of the game now. And ConcernedApe hasn’t charged a cent for any of these. Of course, I’ve purchased the game literally six times across multiple platforms, including a physical PC copy from Fangamer.
I fell away from the game after playing a couple of farms early on in the game’s lifetime, but when version 1.6 was released in 2024 my son suggested we start up a multiplayer farm. We actually made it all the way to Ginger Island until Satisfactory 1.0 released and we made the jump to that. But in late 2025 my son proposed we go for Perfection, the ultimate goal in Stardew Valley that was introduced in version 1.5.
Perfection requires catching every fish, reaching max relationship with every townsperson, shipping one of every single shippable item, and much, much more. It requires a tremendous amount of tracking if you want to complete it in the game’s first few years, which was our goal. My older son took the lead and guided us through the Community Center, Ginger Island, and finally Perfection in just over two years. It was an incredible experience for my two sons and I that brought us closer than ever. I will never forget completing Perfection and watching the credits on the mountaintop next to my children.
When it came to picking my favorite game of 2016, there was never a doubt it would be Stardew Valley. Easily one of my favorite games of all time, it transcended Harvest Moon at release and continues to outpace Story of Seasons and other farming games thanks to its tremendous post-release support. Later today ConcernedApe plans to announce details on version 1.7, including new marriageable candidates, all while he planned to be working on Haunted Chocolatier. After 10 years I’m still playing Stardew Valley, and I’ll probably be playing it 10 years from now too. Stardew Valley is the best game from 2016.
