Stardew Valley fans have been left a mix of validated and confused after developer Eric Barone confirmed the existence of a long suspected bug that affects the game’s all important harvesting mechanics in an update 1.6 patch note.
Stardew Valley’s passionate fanbase has combed over every facet of Eric Barone’s creation in its eight years since launch, discovering countless quirks, bugs, and secrets while forming the odd conspiracy theory along the way.
This borderline forensic fascination with the game’s mechanics brought to light a bug that seemingly allowed players to harvest crops fractionally faster while moving from left to right, as opposed to in the opposite direction. Now, after years of Reddit posts reporting the quirk, Barone has officially confirmed its existence while simultaneously revealing that a fix will be coming in the 1.6 update.
I KNEW IT PEOPLE SAID I WAS CRAZY!!
— Grishord | twitch.tv (@GrishordGames) March 12, 2024
“Fixed bug where it was faster to harvest left-to-right than right-to-left,” reads an excerpt from update 1.6 patch notes posted by Barone on X/Twitter.
The developer later confirmed that the change would allow players to pick the fruits of their labour in both directions “equally fast”, rather than “equally slow”, so there's no need to worry about harvesting speed getting nerfed with the 1.6 update.
Barone believes that the bug, which made the left bound harvesting animation around 100 milliseconds longer than originally intended, had likely been present "all along", though judging by the replies to his post, many fans had remained oblivious to its effect.
Barone has pledged to post a “random non-spoilery patch note line” each and every day leading up to the PC launch of Stardew Valley’s 1.6 update on March 19. Be sure to stick with IGN to stay up to date with all of the information on the new content, and to check out our comprehensive Stardew Valley wiki for everything else that you might need to know about the game.
Anthony is a freelance contributor covering science and video gaming news for IGN. He has over eight years experience of covering breaking developments in multiple scientific fields and absolutely no time for your shenanigans. Follow him on Twitter @BeardConGamer
