Stardew Valley can keep you busy for hundreds of hours, but avid secret hunters may have something new to investigate. During a stream with series creator Eric Barone (ConcernedApe), he mentioned that the farming life sim may still have a secret message for you to uncover. He's just not sure if anyone can.
Today marked the first official fishing tournament for Stardew Valley over on Twitch, where streamer UnsurpassableZ hosted Barone for nearly four hours while farmers competed for a $40,000 prize pool. As the actual challenge wrapped up and final numbers were tallied, UnsurpassableZ chatted with Barone about his beloved farming game, its inspirations, hopes for the future, and yes, even touched on secrets.
After a prompt from the stream's chat, UnsurpassableZ mentioned Stardew Valley's three hidden statues—something fans have long discovered, but don't quite get—and asked if there were "any secrets in any capacity in Stardew Valley that people still don't know about?"
"There is one," Barone responds. "I don't think anyone will ever figure [it] out. There's a secret, I guess you might say, message or something. The thing is, the message is not even really relevant anymore. It was originally revealing something that's actually not even true anymore. I still don't think anyone's found it, and I don't know if anyone ever will because it's extremely obscure to find it."
The tournament's Twitch chat flew into a frenzy of "challenge accepted" and fans eager to put the pieces together. Stardew Valley has a ton of little secrets some of its more casual players may have missed, but the contents of that hidden message are still a mystery.
The rest of the short Q&A was still a treasure trove of news for those of you keen on more from ConcernedApe. Barone also explained his thoughts on adding new romances, and how that posed challenges given the scope and how busy he is. He was unsure if Stardew Valley would ever see another content update, but he did not that he was working hard on his new game, and could have more information on it "fairly soon."