The beloved cozy game Stardew Valley is an excellent time for anyone interested in focusing on a small plot of land and building it up to cover it with lush plants, vegetables, and farm animals. While Stardew Valley is great on your own, many fans enjoy linking up with friends in multiplayer.
With the Stardew Valley 1.6 Update on the way, multiplayer in the game will expand to allow up to eight friends to build a virtual farm together. With this change coming to multiplayer, gamers are curious if it will mean anything new for playing Stardew Valley cross-platform.
Related: Stardew Valley 1.6 Update: Release Date & All New Content
Can You Play Stardew Valley Cross Platform?
Unfortunately, even though multiplayer is supported in Stardew Valley and will be expanded with the 1.6 Update, we likely still won’t be able to play it across platforms. We don’t have all the details about the 1.6 Update, but so far, no news about changes to the lack of cross-platform multiplayer has been announced.
As of now, Stardew Valley only supports players using the same hardware to share the multiplayer experience. If you and your friends want to play on the same server, you need to choose the same platform to play. There is a lot to choose from, though.
You can play Stardew Valley on the PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Linux, and mobile. The 1.6 Update is coming to PC earlier than these other platforms, but the updated game will eventually be supported for all platforms – just not with multiplayer across platforms, as far as we know.
How Multiplayer Save Files Work in Stardew Valley
The person who hosts the game will have the save file on their platform, which means that person will have to host and start the game whenever you and your friends want to play it. In other words, choose wisely when starting your game and make sure that the host isn’t your least available friend, or else you won’t be able to hang out together on the farm very often.
This hosting structure also means the gamer who hosts can freely continue to play the game, even without the other players in the game.
Will We Ever Get Cross-Platform Play for Stardew Valley?
At this time, the sole developer of the game, Eric Barone, commonly known as ConcernedApe, has not shared any details about cross-platform play or if he plans to make it happen in the future. Because he is the single developer working on the project, it’s unlikely he plans to drive for it to become a reality.
Barone continues to update Stardew Valley regularly and is working on a new project, Haunted Chocolatier, which has a similar art style and cozy feel. He posts updates about the extended universe of Stardew Valley on his blog.
