'Stardew Valley' News: Multiplayer Update in Final Phases of Testing, Beta to Launch in Spring
Eric Barone, also known as Concerned Ape, the lead developer for indie game "Stardew Valley," has announced that the much-anticipated multiplayer update for the charming farming simulator is in its final phases of testing and that, if all goes well, a multiplayer beta should pop up around spring time.
Barone talks about the current status of the major 1.3 update for "Stardew Valley" in his newest blog post. In the post, he writes about how he recruited the help of developer Tom Coxon of Chucklefish in order to finalize and stabilize the netcode for turning "Stardew Valley" into a multiplayer game. He also mentions that the update is finally ready to enter the quality assurance phase of testing.
"Work on the new features is done, and we've sent all the new text off to be translated into the different languages," he wrote. "Meanwhile, we are working on bug fixes. Once we've received the translated text and integrated it back into the game, we'll begin a serious QA phase involving thorough testing of all new features in both multiplayer and single player contexts. When that is finished, the update should be ready for a public beta."
"I am still shooting for a spring release for the beta," he wrote, which could be anytime as early as the end of March to the middle of June. With any luck, it will be the former.
"Stardew Valley" has slowly become one of the poster boys for an indie game done right. It has continued to rise in popularity ever since it came out and even more so as Barone pushes out more and more updates and ports the games to various consoles. Just last year, "Stardew Valley" became the most downloaded Nintendo Switch title of 2017. Truly an impressive feat for such a small game.
Barone writes that, as soon as everything is ready and good to go, he will announce all the necessary details players will need to know in order to participate in the multiplayer beta.
