Stardew Valley creator Eric "ConcernedApe" Barone once started "work on a Stardew Valley 2," but eventually left the sequel behind in favor of Haunted Chocolatier. That doesn't mean he'd be opposed to returning to the idea in the future, though.
Speaking in a new interview with IGN, Barone responds to a question asking if he'd ever consider making a Stardew Valley sequel instead of just updating the original 2016 farming sim like he's been doing for the last 10 years. Previously, the dev has explained that while he might eventually make a direct follow-up, it's "just so much easier to just add more stuff to Stardew Valley than to make a whole new game from scratch" – especially when he doesn't "care about money that much."
In this latest interview, though, he seems a bit more into the idea. "Yeah, I would," Barone responds. "In fact, I would love to because it would just be fun to work on a whole new set of characters, a whole new world, maybe capture some of that original energy that I had back in 2012, when I started working with Stardew Valley. There's something fun about the number of possibilities in a whole new world, which I think would be fun for me. It'd be fun for my team. We'd be really excited about it. It's a bit difficult because people are so attached to Pelican Town and to the villagers in Pelican Town. I do fear a little bit that if it's a whole new cast of characters, people might feel put off by that."
Barone suggests that, to get around that potential hurdle, a different "approach to Stardew Valley 2 could be to use the existing cast, but it's like a new adventure in the world, but then I'm still stuck with the same thing." With that in mind, it's something he'd have to "think about."
It's then that Barone drops a bombshell – Stardew Valley 2 was almost a reality, once upon a time. "There was a time where I was starting to work on a Stardew Valley 2, but, I don't know. For various reasons, I moved over to Haunted Chocolatier instead," the dev reveals. "Haunted Chocolatier you could say is like the Stardew Valley 2, but it's a bit different of a game, so we'll see."
Details about ConcernedApe's next life sim, the aforementioned Haunted Chocolatier, have been light on the ground since its big reveal in 2021 – Barone recently admitted that he "shouldn't have announced the game so early. But I had my reasons." Despite that, he's still hard at work on it, dispelling any fears by clarifying: "I am not going to abandon Haunted Chocolatier."
