Stardew Valley creator humbly asks fans not to get too hyped for his next game yet and, uh, we'll try

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"I'm not setting out to make the next indie smash hit"

(Image credit: ConcernedApe)

The creator of Stardew Valley sent hype levels soaring when he revealed he's working on a new game set in the Stardew world earlier this week, but at his request, let's all take a minute to ground ourselves.

Eric "ConcernedApe" Barone didn't make the initial announcement in a big blog post or reveal stream. He was just politely answering a fan's question on Twitter. Still, people around the world (including us) couldn't help becoming instantly excited and wanting to know more. Barone returned to Twitter to let us know that that wasn't what he was going for, and hopefully we can all just, um, take it easy.

It's rare for a video game developer to want people to be less hyped about their next game, but Barone hasn't followed the typical game development path. He created the initial version of Stardew Valley by himself and has kept it updated for years (aside from working with an external publisher on online multiplayer and console porting duties). Barone finally started hiring other employees to assist him with further work on Stardew Valley in late 2018, at which point he also mentioned wanting to broaden out into other unspecified projects.

We probably won't be able to help getting excited about the prospect of returning to Stardew Valley's world in a new game and wondering what that would be like, but we should still do our best to respect the wishes of the creator of a game we all enjoy… Maybe we can compromise and just play it cool whenever we think Barone is looking?

"Oh, you're making more Stardew, Eric? That's cool I guess. Hope you have fun with it. Well, see ya around. OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGOD." That should work, right?

Find more to play while you wait for the next update with our guide to games like Stardew Valley.

Connor Sheridan
Connor Sheridan

I got a BA in journalism from Central Michigan University - though the best education I received there was from CM Life, its student-run newspaper. Long before that, I started pursuing my degree in video games by bugging my older brother to let me play Zelda on the Super Nintendo. I've previously been a news intern for GameSpot, a news writer for CVG, and was formerly a staff writer at GamesRadar.