Stardew Valley 1.6 Easter egg adds a fantastic nod to one of the farming sim's strangest glitches – which could transform stairs into underwear

Stardew Valley
(Image credit: Eric Barone)

Stardew Valley 1.6 is jam-packed with new content to delve into and fresh secrets to discover, and one of the best ones is seemingly a direct reference to one of the glitches removed in the very same update. 

The glitch in question was an unusual one. Up until the 1.6 update, players were able to equip a craftable staircase as pants, which would transform them into a pair of Trimmed Lucky Purple Shorts – a clothing item you'd only normally be able to get by tailoring Mayor Lewis's colorful underwear found in Marnie's bedroom. Playing regularly, you're only meant to get one pair of these in the game, which is a pity since, besides being a nice neighbor and returning them to him for a quest, you can also torment Lewis by throwing them in the soup at the Luau festival. It's not the best thing to do if you want him to like you, but the dialogue is rather funny.

Luckily though, there's still a way to grab more shorts in the 1.6 update, in a new method which also requires you to use a staircase. This time though, rather than slapping it into a clothing slot, you'll instead want to craft a staircase and take it to Mayor Lewis's house, where you can use it in his bedroom. In a newly added Easter egg, this'll let you enter his basement, where you'll discover a maze with a pair of his beloved shorts sitting right at the end. What's more, you can repeat the method multiple times to gather as many pairs of shorts as you want. 

[1.6 Spoiler] Easter Egg involving Staircases and Lucky Purple Shorts. from r/StardewValley

There is a catch, though. Grabbing the legendary undies will cause an invincible floating pair of the Lucky Purple Shorts to materialize in the basement, that'll attack you if you get too close. So, don't stay down there too long lest you face their wrath.

Needless to say, the whole thing is utterly bizarre, but in the best way possible, and it's really neat that developer ConcernedApe has still left a way for players to try out the other uses for the shorts without needing a glitch.

Another cool Stardew Valley Easter egg added in 1.6 lets you unlock a weapon from Re-Logic's 2D adventure game, Terraria.

Catherine Lewis
News Writer

I'm one of GamesRadar+'s news writers, who works alongside the rest of the news team to deliver cool gaming stories that we love. After spending more hours than I can count filling The University of Sheffield's student newspaper with Pokemon and indie game content, and picking up a degree in Journalism Studies, I started my career at GAMINGbible where I worked as a journalist for over a year and a half. I then became TechRadar Gaming's news writer, where I sourced stories and wrote about all sorts of intriguing topics. In my spare time, you're sure to find me on my Nintendo Switch or PS5 playing through story-driven RPGs like Xenoblade Chronicles and Persona 5 Royal, nuzlocking old Pokemon games, or going for a Victory Royale in Fortnite.