Stardew Valley Is Now Steam’s Best Reviewed Game of All Time

While certainly an accomplishment, anyone who’s ever picked up the game or peeked over someone’s shoulder as they furiously tend to a farm or flirt with half the town won’t be too surprised by this achievement. Since its developer Eric “ConcernedApe” Barone released it nearly a decade ago on February 26, 2016, Stardew Valley has taken the game world by storm. Enamored with the town full of activities, music, and characters that are fending off big corporation encroachment, in addition to the high degree of character and farm customizability, people quickly turned the game into a massive critical and commercial hit. 

On its Steam page, the game sits at Overwhelmingly Positive with over 766K reviews. According to the game’s website, as of December 2024, it’s sold over 41 million copies across all platforms. The first million was crossed in the first two months after its launch. It can be viewed as having raised the farming sim RPG slice of gaming to a new stratosphere of visibility. Notably, it is a genre that had already seen major success due to games like Stardew Valley’s biggest influence, the Harvest Moon series. 

Today, while ConcernedApe’s focus has shifted more to his next, more haunting and chocolate-y game, Stardew Valley has received a major update as recently as March 2024. Plus, it has a massive and dedicated modding community that’s creating new content for players to peruse in the meantime. All of it is enough for players old and new to lose hundreds of hours building up their farm, marrying their favorite character, and then doing it all again in a new save after deciding they could do things better with a fresh start, making today’s milestone easily understandable.