Stardew Valley Expanded creator works on a new project. Ambitious Castle Village is expected to surpass its predecessor
After a huge update to the popular Stardew Valley mod, its creator is focusing on his work for the game developer and his next, even more ambitious modification.
Baldur's Village is not all that Stardew Valley fans can look forward to. The developer of a major mod to Eric "ConcernedApe" Barone's game is working on a new, even more ambitious project.
The modder known as FlashShifter gained considerable fame among fans of the farming life simulator. This is mainly thanks to the Stardew Valley Expanded mod, which - as the name suggests - significantly expands this title.
The project aimed at nostalgia: its developer wanted the SV veterans to feel as if they were starting their adventure with the original title. This was also helped by later updates, which the modification received over the last few years.
The success of the project is evidenced not only by the immense popularity of Stardew Valley Expanded on Nexus Mods, from which over 3 million unique users have downloaded the mod. FlashShifter even helped with the big 1.6 update of the base game.
Not 2.0, but 2 projects by the creators of Stardew Valley Expanded
Nonetheless, even this official employment didn't conclude the modder's career. On the contrary, FlashShifter intends to surpass his greatest work with Castle Village.
The project (announced several years ago and delayed) was at the beginning supposed to be part of the next 2.0 update for SV Expanded. however, the creator concluded that it would be better to release this "castle" part as an independent mod. Therefore, the new features from version 2.0 finally made it to SVE in patch 1.15, which launched in October 2024.
As FlashShifter put it in an interview for Nexus Mods, Castle Village is an even more ambitious project than SVE. The creation will introduce a new city with unique architecture, "dozens" of NPCs, magical artifacts, and dungeons inspired by The Legend of Zelda series (of course with bosses). Besides, the mod will receive a soundtrack, which will emphasize the unique atmosphere of Castle Village. Perhaps this style - significantly different from what Stardew Valley and SVE offer - is the reason for separating this content from Stardew Valley Expanded 2.0 (or 1.15).
Haunted Chocolatier without mods from creator of SVE
Castle Village doesn't have a release date yet. The developer only confirmed that the launch of this mod will result in updating Stardew Valley Expanded to version 2.0, although these will only be fixes to the game's backend (via FlashShifter on Reddit).
That's a lot of work for one creator, in addition to a supporting developer for the base game. However, FlashShifter clearly doesn't regret the time spent on developing SV, both with mods and officially. In the interview, he mentioned that working on his favorite game was the "most valuable experience" in his life. (Not to mention that the modder was in a grim situation at the time and needed a job).
The American didn't forget to also thank other Stardew Valley fans for supporting his work and, of course, Eric Barone. He also highlighted that he isn't currently planning to create modifications for ConcernedApe's next game, Haunted Chocolatier, as he is concentrating his efforts on working for the developer and on Castle Village.
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