ConcernedApe continues to tease Stardew Valley’s upcoming 1.4 update with new fish ponds and customizations.
You can't really blame the guy for taking his time. Whereas most games have dozens or sometimes hundreds of folks working on updates, Stardew Valley is mostly the brainchild of just one person: Eric Barone, who is better known by his online handle of ConcernedApe.
Much like Minecraft a decade before, Stardew Valley is another casual game that is taking over the world. First, it came to PCs where many indie titles get their start. After that, it migrated to consoles, mobile, and even the PlayStation Vita.
Stardew's expansion is notable for being a game that was mostly just a single-player experience until last year when the pixelated farming simulator finally got multiplayer on PC. PS4 and Xbox One didn't get multiplayer, however, which can be chalked up to their extended certification process.
Those rival consoles will finally get multiplayer with the 1.4 update, which seems to be coming along. ConcernedApe once again dropped a teaser image to get us excited for the upcoming content drop, and it seems to show a wealth of new features.
First, there are the fish ponds, which are said to allow you to raise fish and collect eggs (roe) and "other products." Based on the image, those other products look to be squid and seaweed, but it's possible other beach-related items could be farmed in these new ponds.
Collecting your farmed fish appears to be performed by fishing with a pole, which isn't exactly industry-standard, but then again, neither is being able to take up a sword to slay beasts in a scary cave, which is standard practice in Stardew.
At the bottom of the image above, there seem to be some jars that might be where you preserve fish (possibly into jerky) or fish eggs (possibly into caviar). Some new shrubs at the bottom could indicate some new berry bushes, while two new hats are seen on some of the farming characters.
Perhaps the most exciting aspect of the image is a grey cat, which when combined with the German Shepherd seen in the July teaser image, might indicate that pet customization is just around the corner.
There's still no timeline on when we can expect update 1.4 to drop, but it must be coming soon.