Eric Barone says he'd 'love to' make Stardew Valley 2 someday: 'A whole new set of characters, a whole new world, maybe capture some of that original energy that I had back in 2012'

Stardew Valley debuted 10 years ago this month, but creator Eric Barone is still hammering away on it. He's also working on a whole new game called Haunted Chocolatier. It's a lot for one guy, and so you might reasonably think that there's not much room in there for thoughts of a full-on Stardew Valley sequel. But maybe there is.

"I would love to [make Stardew Valley 2] because it would just be fun to work on a whole new set of characters, a whole new world, maybe capture some of that original energy that I had back in 2012, when I started working with Stardew Valley," Barone said in a wide-ranging interview with IGN. "There's something fun about the number of possibilities in a whole new world, which I think would be fun for me. It'd be fun for my team. We'd be really excited about it."

Barone said one concern he has about a potential sequel is that Stardew Valley fans are really attached to Pelican Town and its villagers: "I do fear a little bit that if it's a whole new cast of characters, people might feel put off by that." Another possible approach would be to use the same cast in a new adventure, he continued, although that approach would leave him "stuck with the same thing," presumably meaning that fans would miss the familiar confines of Pelican Town. "I'd have to think about that one," Barone said.

In fact, Stardew Valley 2 almost became a real thing at one point: Barone said he was starting to work on it, but "for various reasons" opted to go with Haunted Chocolatier instead. "Haunted Chocolatier you could say is like the Stardew Valley 2, but it's a bit different of a game, so we'll see."

And it might actually happen. Barone said in 2025, for instance, that he "might eventually make a Stardew Valley 2," although he also said that "it's so much easier to just add more stuff to Stardew Valley than to make a whole new game from scratch."

One of the things that could open the door to an all-new Stardew Valley is that while Barone is one of the most famous solo game developers of all time (possibly the most famous), he's not "just one guy" anymore: He put a team together to help with development back in 2018, and "it's been really great," he told in IGN. "They do great work. They add their own unique sensibilities and ideas to the melting pot of Stardew Valley. There's just so many things that I couldn't have done on my own."

For the immediate future, though, I think it's safe to say that Barone's hands are full, even with the support of a team. He's still working on Haunted Chocolatier, which he recently confirmed is still in development and 100% going to happen, and he's also got the Stardew Valley 1.7 update on the go, which is looking like another big one.