Be prepared to be hated by the entire town for it though.
For years, fans of Stardew Valley have joked about breaking up Pelican Town’s couples and stealing away their favourite spouses. Now, creator Eric Barone has revealed that the idea is still sitting in the back of his mind, although it would come with consequences severe enough to turn the entire town against players.
Speaking in a recent interview with Game Informer, Barone discussed the possibility of adding more realistic relationship drama into the farming sim, including affairs, divorce, and the fallout that would follow. “In a sandbox game, you should be able to do wicked things and then face the consequences,” Barone explained during the interview.
While the idea may sound chaotic for a game often associated with cosy escapism, Barone made it clear that he would never treat it as harmless fun. “I wouldn’t just make everyone be totally chill about it,” he said. “Everyone would hate you. It would cause a lot of chaos and disaster and suffering, and people would be angry, and you would ruin the family.”
Could Stardew Valley really add divorce and homewrecking mechanics?
According to Barone, the idea is still very much hypothetical, but not entirely off the table. The developer explained that while he is morally against infidelity in real life, the sandbox nature of Stardew Valley makes him interested in systems that allow players to make questionable decisions and then live with the consequences.
“I would be open to doing something like that,” Barone continued. “But I wouldn’t baby people about it. There would be very serious consequences.”
That realism is also exactly why he remains hesitant. “Part of me is like, ‘Well, maybe this is just too real,’” he admitted. “Maybe Stardew Valley is supposed to be, to some degree, an escape from those kinds of things. It’s too realistic, you know?”
Old Stardew Valley Reddit posts show players already wanted chaos
While Barone is still undecided on whether mechanics like affairs and homewrecking belong in Stardew Valley, long-time players have been joking about exactly this kind of chaos for years.
An old Reddit thread on r/StardewValley is a classic case, with some people wanting to make Robin (or another married character) their partner instead. One of the most upvoted comments came from Redditor hausccat, where they mentioned how they wanted to download a mod where they can "breakup Pierre for [their] future wife Caroline.”
Another Redditor, slowtail148, pointed out how players often treat the cosy farming sim like complete social warfare, and not everyone in town is nice after all. “Y’all be like ‘Stardew Valley is my cozy game! It’s how I relax and escape the negativity of the real world’ and then proceed to break up 2 sets of happily married couples, steal and wear the mayor's underwear, and hate the blacksmith with a[n] unwavering passion.”
Honestly, considering how many players already treat Pelican Town like some sort of battlefield, Barone’s idea may not be as shocking to the community as it first sounds.
UPDATE [as of 14 May]: ConcernedApe says the “cheating” mechanics won't be added to Stardew Valley
GosuGamers have previously reported that ConcernedApe's response to divorce and cheating mechanics was purely hypothetical. ConcernedApe also verified and clarified this on social media through a response on X (formerly Twitter):
In his reply, he said that the quotes were taken out of context and “if you read the actual interview it's clear that I'm not going to add it [divorce and cheating].”
He also emphasised in another tweet that he was only talking “theoretically”, that if he was going to ever add it at all, “then I wouldn't just make it some consequence-free thing, everyone would hate you, there would be severe conseequences for your moral failures.”
