Everything About Stardew Valley Co-op [Explained]

While it’s true that Stardew Valley is single-player focused in its main story, you can always add in a few friends to spice things up! The already impressive Stardew Valley experience becomes much more exciting with a couple of friends playing alongside you!

Is There a Co-op in Stardew Valley?

Co-op multiplayer was added to Stardew Valley in its version 1.5 update. You can join in on a game with your friends and play together through this mode. A maximum of 4 players can share the same farm. 

Let’s get the simplest thing out of the way first – yes, Stardew Valley supports co-op multiplayer. When the game was initially released, it only featured the traditional, single-player journey. However, fans cried out for the developers to introduce a multiplayer mode so they could share the gameplay experience with their friends!

As a part of its version 1.5 update, Stardew Valley introduced co-op multiplayer on PC. Soon after, the game mode was implemented on other platforms as well. You can find more details on all changes introduced in version 1.5 on the official Stardew Valley forum.

How Does Co-op Work?

You can either set up a new world to play co-op in, or use existing worlds. The existing world can either be yours or someone else’s. 

Setting Up A New Farm 

The first one is pretty straightforward. To set up a new world, select the co-op option on the main menu and create a new world. Here, you can choose to host the new world you want to play in. Make sure that you enable co-op on this save file! You can also change the economic scale of the world and select if you’d like to share the total gold between different players. 

Changing the economic scale can help control the game difficulty as it can increase/diminish overall profit margins. I recommend setting a lower economic scale if you’re an experienced player. If all of you are newbies starting out, it’s better to set the scale at the standard level and even share gold amongst one another, if preferred. 

Hosting An Existing World

If you already have a farm layout set up and don’t want to go through the hassle of creating a new save file – this one’s for you! You can have your friends join up on an existing save file by constructing a Cabin on your farm. You’ll need to make a Cabin each for the players you intend to invite. These structures can be built through Robin’s Carpenter Shop.

A Cabin enables online play and allows players to join your farm. You can host a maximum of 4 players at a time. Once you’ve built this Cabin, return to the Main Menu and enable online play on your save file to let your friends join in! The Cabin acts as a house for all the players that join up. 

The Four Corners Map is a practical solution to building these since it already features everything needed for co-op play. This farm map is divided into four sections – one for each player. This way, you won’t have to fight amongst one another on who gets to have which part of the map!

Joining An Existing World

If you play on Steam, simply hover over to the Co-op screen. Any farms currently being hosted by your friends will automatically appear here! All you have to do is select the one you’d like to join. 

Look for an invite code in the in-game options for any other platforms. You can share this invite code with all the players you want to invite to your farm. 

Does Stardew Valley Co-op Have Cross-Platform?

Well, here comes the bad news. Unfortunately, Stardew Valley does not support cross-platform. There doesn’t seem to be any indication of this being supported in the future either, as the developer of Stardew Valley is now busy working on his next game. 

This means that you won’t be able to play Co-op with individuals on a different platform. You’ll have no choice but to purchase the game on the same platform as the person you intend to play with!

Is Co-op Worth Playing?

Absolutely! Games like Stardew Valley are always fun to play with others. Apart from just the adventurous and fun aspect of playing with your friends, you can get considerable advantages when playing co-op.

Firstly, your efficiency can effectively quadruple when playing with 4 individuals! Everyone can split activities amongst each other. By setting the game economy at the usual scale and sharing gold between one another, you can get 4x the amount of work done that you would’ve had otherwise!

Playing on a co-op server can also help you progress much faster than usual and save up a ton of time. For example, one player can be responsible for clearing up the Mines, another for Farming, one for working on the Skull Cavern, while the last befriends villagers! 

This is just an example of how to do things – but you get the point!

You should note, though, that there is one slight problem with all these advantages. Online play in Stardew Valley can be a bit hectic at the start. It can become quite a hassle to coordinate things among 4 players. Due to this, the initial stages of setting everything up in co-op can become very chaotic. 

I recommend not worrying about this too much, though. This is only a natural part of transitioning to the game’s multiplayer aspect. Give it a little time, and everything will come around smoothly! 

Now that you know everything about co-op, why not check out the different farms you can use in your co-op adventures!