Stardew Valley Expanded hailed as an essential add-on, and it's free

If you’re a fan of Stardew Valley and you just so happen to play it on PC and you haven’t checked out Stardew Valley Expanded, I have just one question for you: What are you doing?!

Stardew Valley Expanded is, I’m going to say it, the best mod for this game out there. Created by modder FlashShifter, it adds a wealth of content to the base game - and content that feels on par with the quality of an official release. There are dozens of new characters, six new marriage candidates, several map changes, an entire new continent, new events, and a ton of new fish, crops, and furniture - and the best part is that FlashShifter continues to update the mod. It’s no surprise that it’s already been downloaded over 1.8 million times.

Take a look at Stardew Valley in action below.

FlashShifter, real name Devin Hedegaard, has his brother to thank for inspiring his modding efforts. Devin came home from college, saw his brother playing Stardew Valley, and ended up getting sucked into this indie delight himself. After reaching 100% completion, Devin taught himself to mod and after a stretch of time, Stardew Valley Expanded was launched.

You can download the expansion for free from NexusMods but don’t just take my word for how fantastic this download is. The Stardew Valley community is full of praise too. Reddit user pak4z0r0 wrote, “It's by far the best content mod out there, practically bug free and adds so much life to the vanilla game. [...] The woods are bigger, there are new areas, there is more forage to get. New characters give you useful things [from] the first week if you manage to talk to them regularly. The new farm model is very lovingly made and with much to discover. NPC[s] have new lines, there are new heart events, there are new bachelor/ettes and so on. The game doesn't end with Ginger Island, there are more things to discover.”

User echoCashMeOusside added, “It's definitely a great way to expand the game if you've already played through a couple times,” but warned long-time players that “it's definitely overwhelming - there's a lot to do! And it can knock you for a loop. I feel like I could navigate the map with my eyes closed so all of a sudden adding new portions of the map caused me to get turned around a few times. That's neither a pro nor a con, just takes time to get used to.” If only non-PC players could also experience this delight.