Stardew Valley ‘future-proofed’ in latest update, with much more to come

Stardew Valley’s latest patch isn’t necessarily a big one, and it doesn’t add new content, but it “futureproofs the game” by migrating to a newer framework, according to version 1.5.5’s patch notes. The change means mods will be able to use more than 4 GB of RAM.

Coming soon, version 1.5.6 will add more modding support. courtesy of modder PathosChild and SMAPI, the Stardew Valley mod tool they designed. The patch notes didn’t go into greater detail on what 1.5.6 will have coming, but “some long requested ‘holy grail’ changes” are on tap. PathosChild has been given access to Stardew Valley’s source code for the changes on the way.

PathosChild also led the migration, which took Stardew Valley off XNA, which Microsoft hasn’t developed since 2013, and into MonoGame, which is an open-source implementation of XNA 4. Vanilla XNA was the platform for the old Xbox Live Indie Games on Xbox 360.

Stardew fans will also likely appreciate the small but significant quality-of-life changes implemented with version 1.5.5. These includes a buy-back option in case you mistakenly sell something (provided you reclaim it in the same shopping session), and carrying over some settings and preferences into new game saves.

But the biggest is the ability to scootch a pet out of the way if they’re sitting on a space where you want to build. Simply nudge them by clicking on them and they’ll move. It’s much more effective than grumbling and swearing at the screen.

The full patch notes detail a bunch of other fixes made to the game; version 1.5.5 went live on Tuesday. No word on when 1.5.6 deploys; it doesn’t sound like it should be too long, but version 1.5.5 did follow 1.5.4 by almost 10 months.