'Stardew Valley' 2018 patch news: Major update with multiplayer mode and new story

The village-life simulator game, "Stardew Valley," has been quite successful even while still in single-player mode. However, fans will be excited to learn that a big update set for release next year will definitely be making a lot of big changes.

The game's creator, Eric "ConcernedApe" Barone previously made a reveal of this new big update. Not much was said during then, but a recent tweet by Barone himself mentioned a lot of concrete details about the big update.

The update mentioned in the tweet includes a new "town event", a new collection starting with the player's first winter, outdoor decorations that may change with the season, signs that can display any item and NPC "events." While those are mainly additions to the game, he is also allowing players to re-spec their profession if they want to try something else.

Another future update that was previously reported a while back is what many players have been asking for: a multiplayer mode. This multiplayer mode will put emphasis on being able to marry other players instead of just a non-player character (NPC). There was not much detail given except that they would not be using the mermaid pendant and that marrying players will still take the same amount of effort as with the NPC.

Fortunately, all of these will come for free for all consoles. However, Barone did not mention when they will be out but it will surely be within 2018. The update will be first released for Mac/PC/Linux players, and updates for the console versions will come a bit later.

Before then, the game's publisher, Chucklefish, will be releasing a multiplayer beta. It was originally set for this year, but it has since been pushed back to next year. Nevertheless, fans can rest assured that these will all be coming within the next year.