Stardew Valley Expanded was so good it got creator FlashShifter a job working with ConcernedApe, but he's not done building mods in his spare time. In fact, he's working on a new project called Castle Village that aims to be "even more ambitious than SVE."
"I’m working on 'Castle Village,' which is an entirely new mod," FlashShifter explains in an interview with Nexus Mods. "It was originally supposed to be included in the Stardew Valley Expanded 2.0 update, but I recently decided it was best to split it off. This project is even more ambitious than SVE, featuring a new city, dozens of fully developed NPCs, dungeons inspired by The Legend of Zelda, boss monsters, magical artifacts, new music, and much more."
FlashShifter adds that monster combat will be a big focus on this mod, and that he's designing "unique sprites for everything in this region to give it a distinct feel." There's no ETA yet on when the Castle Village mod might launch, you can at least find a couple of screenshots to peruse at the link above.
Stardew Valley Expanded is arguably the best Stardew Valley mod out there. FlashShifter famously got a job working with ConcernedApe after the success of SVE, and while the idea of a modder parlaying that experience into a proper job isn't wholly unique, it is unusual to see someone continuing to do such excellent mod work in their spare time.
FlashShifter says that while he's very excited for ConcernedApe's next game, he "won’t be making mods for Haunted Chocolatier. My attention is drawn towards my work at ConcernedApe LLC and developing Castle Village." I think that's fair given everything he's already built for Stardew fans.
