A rumour has started going around that Stardew Valley creator Eric “ConcernedApe” Barone is considering adding the ability to cheat in your marriage in the wholesome farming sim. However, Barone has since come out and squashed those rumours while having an out-loud discussion about the merits of a theoretical cheating system in the game.
Barone told GameInformer that in a sandbox game like Stardew Valley, “you should be able to do wicked things” and then face the consequences of your actions afterwards. “I wouldn’t just make everyone be totally chill about it,” Barone said of cheating on your Stardew Valley spouse. “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.”
Barone added that there would be “very serious consequences” if he hypothetically did add cheating on a partner to Stardew Valley, as it would potentially upset the tone of the game. “Part of me is like, ‘Well, maybe this is just too real’,” he said. “Maybe Stardew Valley is supposed to be, to some degree, an escape from those kinds of things. It’s too realistic, you know?”
Now, in a series of posts on X, Barone has clarified his comments, saying that what he said about cheating in Stardew Valley had been “taken out of context”. The quotes taken alone didn’t “capture the whole spirit of what I was saying”, he said, and instead made it seem like the option to cheat was “something I am planning on adding” to the game.
“I’m not going to actually do this,” Barone explained. “I was just talking theoretically, that if I were then I wouldn’t just make it some consequence-free thing, everyone would hate you, there would be severe consequences for your moral failures. If you’re making a sandbox game I think it’s interesting to allow people to do things, even bad things. But there should be consequences. That teaches you a life lesson. If you just get away with it or everyone is chill with it, that would be bad.”
Barone added that the only thing he had ever seriously considered was allowing players to break up the Pierre-Caroline and Robin-Demetrius relationships, but even that “is probably too heavy and serious” for a game like Stardew Valley. Plus, he went on, “[it] would be a ton of work to adjust all the dialogue and tone of everyone in town in consequence, and Grandpa [would be] ashamed of you.”
As for what is next, Barone is currently working on his next game, Haunted Chocolatier. Haunted Chocolatier was initially announced back in 2021. In May of 2024, Barone said he’s “not too concerned with the pressure” of releasing Haunted Chocolatier, stating “it’s better to have a delayed game that’s actually good than a bad game that’s on time”.
Since then, Barone has revealed that the world of Haunted Chocolatier is larger than Stardew Valley. Then, in January of this year, Barone said he had “been very productive lately” and Haunted Chocolatier is alive and well, even if things are taking a bit longer than some had hoped or expected.
