Stardew Valley saw a surge in the active Steam player count after releasing the 1.6 update on PC, per SteamDB.

Developer Eric "ConcernedApe" Barone published the much-awaited major update, causing record-breaking numbers on Steam.

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Stardew Valley 1.6 Update Increases Player Activity

Based on SteamDB, the game has its 24-hour peak with 146, 159 players. As of writing, there are more than 76,000 players that are in-game right now. This has been the highest number of active gamers for Stardew Valley ever since it was released in 2016.

The 1.6 update brought several changes to the game including a new major festival, two new mini-festivals, and a new environment event. In addition, Barone also added hundreds of new lines of dialogue to boost the interaction between characters.

"This update adds new content to the game, focusing mainly on the valley, with additions and improvements to almost all areas of the game," Barone shared. Aside from life features, bugs were also fixed for this patch.

Stardew Valley Maintains Popularity

Despite being a solo game developer, Barone takes time to listen to the feedback of his players. After months of waiting, he was finally able to release the much-awaited major update for the game.

The full patch notes of the 1.6 update are full of specific new content, along with visual improvements around the valley. There are also balance changes and gameplay fixes to improve the gaming experience of players.

The new update now allows up to eight players on PC. Steam players must use the Steam multiplayer authentication to improve connection issues. Large multiplayer packets are also now compressed to reduce bandwidth usage and latency.

As of writing the new update is only available on PC. Players on PlayStation, Switch, and Xbox consoles must wait for a separate release date.

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