You’ve inherited your grandfather’s old farm plot in Stardew Valley, along with a few worn tools and some coppers. Thanks to the Joja Corporation, the community center is a shadow of its former self and the Valley has largely been forgotten. It’s up to you to take the little you’ve got and carve something great out of it, restoring Stardew Valley to its former glory in the process.

Published by Chucklefish – creators of Starbound – and developed by ConcernedApe, Stardew Valley is mainly inspired by the SNES classic Harvest Moon. It’s an obvious influence as it places the player in a similar position, starting with a plot of land and developing it into something pretty spectacular. Not only are you milking cows and planting seeds, you’re also building a community and developing relationships too. Rather than just lumping it into the “Farming Simulator” category, it’s more accurate to describe it as a “Country Life” game. Farming is just one aspect you can get embroiled in and it’s this gameplay that Stardew Valley wishes to capture and expand upon. Farming in Harvest Moon allowed you to cultivate the land, introducing a multitude of other options as a host of personalities began to flock to your luscious turnips. Well, Stardew Valley brings this to the stable and so much more.

The first few moments in the trailer are fairly generic, it’s nod your head and mildly smile material. However as time goes by, one by one new things are revealed to the point where you can’t quite believe it. By the end I was blown away, with it turning into clapping wildly and grinning from ear to ear material. If there’s one way I’m going to spend my spare time as a city-dweller, it’s certainly going to involve building a virtual life in the country.




What can I get up to in Stardew Valley?

Bringing memories of Runescape flooding back, you’ll be able to level up five different skills: farming, mining, combat, fishing and foraging. It won’t be a surprise if, as time goes on, new skills will be added to later patches.

There’ll be over thirty unique characters living in Stardew Valley and remarkably, each person will have their own daily schedule, birthday, unique mini-cutscenes and dialogue for days. If you befriend them enough and strike up a decent relationship, they’ll begin to open up to you: divulging secrets, telling you their woes or asking for some personal assistance with a multitude of tasks.

You can aim to take down the Joja Corporation, but you can also side with them too and take the alternate route. Very intriguing…

Fishing (I love fishing). It won’t be limited to casting a rod, you’ll be able to craft your own bait, bobbers and crab pots in your quest to obtain every fish and become a local legend. Count me in, as that’s all I’ll be doing.

There’s a museum where you can donate artifacts and minerals – Animal Crossing style.

There’s a Terraria-esque item bar at the bottom of the screen that allows you to switch between tools, weapons and items quickly and easily.

See the full list of features right here.

Stardew Valley is a game you’ll want to keep on your radar, especially if you need to escape the frantic nature of real life. I see it as a form of gaming therapy which’ll ultimately take over my real life, to the point where I genuinely note down my farm’s address when signing something important.

Stardew Valley is set to release on February 26th for PC priced at $15 or £10. Find out more about the game here.