Stardew Valley 1.6 – the 10 best new features, from festivals to new crops

The new 1.6 update for Stardew Valley has landed on console and mobile, and it's come with a huge collection of new features like some new neighbors and fresh events.

is back on top form for players on console and mobile with the arrival of the 1.6 update, and finally players everywhere are lucky enough to have every detail organised and put in its rightful place. The for yesterday’s update are long and packed to the brim with features, though we wish they’d also have come with news about the hoped . Regardless, the game on , , and mobile is now packed to bursting with new features just as the experience has been for some time, and there are features that players are encountering for the very first time now.

Here’s the 10 best features introduced into Stardew Valley 1.6.

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A brand new farm

The brand new Meadowlands farm has arrived in Stardew Valley, bringing with it a chewy new bluegrass that animals love to help you boost your heart level with farm animals twice as quickly. It also enables you to start the game with a coop and two chickens, which is a massive bonus for players who want to focus on rearing animals more than they do simple farming.

The Desert Festival

The latest addition to Stardew Valley’s calendar is the Desert Festival, a three-day event in Spring that offers players the chance to purchase new and rare items, along with a fresh challenge in the Skull Cavern and a racing mini-game. There’s plenty to do over the event, which makes it pretty lucky that it will last for a few days.

The Trout Derby and Squid Fest

The festivals don’t end in the desert, as evidenced by two new fishing-themed events that have arrived asking you to spend a couple of days in Summer and Winter. Those who do could receive bonus coins and items. You won’t have to spend the whole day fishing, but it’ll come in handy if you’re looking for something to do.

Skill mastery

A new area in the Forest has been added that will allow you to earn brand new abilities that align with the game’s five skills – combat, woodcutting, farming, fishing and mining. Once you’ve mastered all five, you’ll get to unlock a very special permanent reward. We won’t spoil it for you, but it’ll make your endgame a lot easier.

Books and the Bookseller

A bookseller will now come to Pelican Town on two random days every season, offering you new book items that will help you learn new skills and step closer to mastery. Collecting these books will be important in keeping your skills in tip-top shape, and could end up assisting nicely in your end-game work to become super-rich or reach the greatest depths of the Skull Cavern.

Your new neighbours

To discuss this might breach spoiler territory, but bare with us – a giant tree can now be found at the top of the forest, which after a random event that occurs overnight will become very important in a new questline. Complete the quest, and who knows, you might earn yourself some new friends living next door to you.

New crops

Finally, there are some new crops for you to buy and grow in Stardew Valley! The Carrot, Summer Squash, Broccoli, and Powdermelon can be found by foraging around Pelican Town. Plus, there are now two mystery giant crops to find. Experiment on your farm, and you might just figure out which ones now have whopping variants.

New NPC changes

NPCs have been updated in the game to offer some more dynamic speech options, helping the process of befriending the townsfolk of Pelican Town a little less monotonous. Plus, in an act of great generosity from developer ConcernedApe, the characters living in the town will finally wrap up in new outfits for winter. Thank goodness, we were worried they’d freeze.

New home customisations

A new attic, dining room, expanded corner room, and cubby are now officially available to be added to the inside of your home, along with a huge new collection of furniture items. Your interior design game is about to step all the way up.

Plenty of new items

Finally, the game has added a huge number of new items that are going to be massively handy. For starters, the Big Chest will make storage a lot easer, the Fish Smoker will help you to increase the value of your caught fish, and a swathe of new statues have been added to let you decorate your farm even further. You’re going to be spending a lot of time digging everything in the update up, so prepare to fill some Big Chests.

That’s the 10 best new features added to Stardew Valley 1.6! Console and mobile players rejoice, because your farming experience just got a whole lot better.