The Stardew Valley 1.6 update has finally arrived for PC gamers

Stardew Valley is a phenomenon and one of the best farm life sim games out there.

And Eric Barone, aka Concerned Ape, just keeps adding to it to make it even more involved and even more fun, especially for long-time players.

That's still true with this latest 1.6 patch update, currently only available on PC (consoles usually follow pretty quickly). The update launched yesterday and he claimed it was a smaller update, giving him a break from working on The Haunted Chocolatier.

Well... it's small in comparison to the 1.5 update that gave us a completely brand new area in Ginger Island and plenty of new events.

But it's still huge.

Leading up to the launch on PC on March 19, Barone was giving non-spoiler patch notes about things he's adding in this latest update. There were two big ones that gamers freaked out over (and neither of them are the ability to drink mayonnaise): cutting down a fruit tree will give you a sapling, and a new farm type.

The Meadowlands Farm is a brand-new way to start the game and is kind of a big deal. If you're a veteran player and try your hardest to finish the community center as fast as possible, you know one of the hardest bundles to complete is the Animal bundle in the pantry. You need both a coop and a barn, which are both expensive to get in the first few seasons. But the Meadowlands Farm starts you with a coop and two chickens.

And those two eggs you start to get every day are a really nice 100g at the start of the game. Plus the starting to-do items for this farm are a little different than normal, which adds a fun twist.

But the 1.6 update doesn't stop there. You can find the full list here and browse at your own leisure. Some of them are fun cosmetic updates, like new waterfalls, less jagged lakeshores, and smaller adjustments like that. We're very excited to see all of the new winter outfits the NPCs wear come the winter season.

Now, some of the bigger updates that have us stoked are a handful of new festivals and events (a desert festival in the spring, two fishing mini events, and an "event" in the summer), a "big tree" that gives you quests that give you new neighbors, a ton of new items, and some nice quality of life updates, including a more accurate map that places you on it in real-time.

There are so many more updates to the game that makes it feel almost brand new, even to long-time gamers. We've only scratched the surface, having made it about a week into spring in a new game, but we're excited to see all the new changes that are in place.

The Stardew Valley 1.6 update is only available for PC at the moment. But the updates in the past haven't taken terribly long to make it to consoles.

Are you excited to play the Stardew Valley 1.6 update? What are you most looking forward to? Let us know in the comments!