Stardew Valley Multiplayer:Farming can be a solo, peaceful action, a Zen ritual, or an obsessive march to agricultural perfection. Or you can share the farming life with buddies thanks to Stardew Valley multiplayer, which is now easy to play on Steam or GOG.
Stardew’s multiplayer does not support split-screen, so make sure whoever you plan to play with has their copy of the game. Multiplayer relies on the Cabin farm structure that you can buy from Robin. It would be best if you had cabins on your farm for each friend (up to 3). Luckily, each place is cheap to build in an existing singleplayer save, or you can begin a new multiplayer farm with cabins already pre-built.
Saves are collected on the host player’s machine, meaning others can’t keep playing after the host leaves the game. We’ll start with the quickest and easiest way to play Stardew Valley multiplayer with your friends and also share some tips on how to be most effective as a farming team.
How to Start a Stardew Valley Multiplayer Farm
The most active and easiest way to start a multiplayer farm is from scratch:
- Select “Co-Op” in the main menu.
- Under the “Host” tab select “Host new farm.”
- Select the number of additional cabins you want to start with, up to three.
- Select “Nearby” or “Separate” to control where the other cabins should be placed.
- Select your profit margin. “Normal” means all items sell at the same price as in singleplayer so you and your friends will likely rake in cash quickly, while percentages below 100% will give you more of a challenge.
- Create your new farmer as usual.
How to Transform Your Singleplayer Farm into a Multiplayer Farm
- Choose “Load” on the main menu and select the farm that you want to use.
- Go to Robin’s store and purchase one of three Cabin types for 100 gold plus either 10 Stone (Stone Cabin), 5 Wood and 10 Fiber (Plank Cabin), or 10 Wood (Log Cabin).
- After you place the cabin on your farm, it creates instantly. Save and return to the title screen.
- Choose Co-op on the title screen and then under the “Host” tab load the farm you just saved with a new cabin.
- Invite your friends!
How to Invite your Friends to Your Farm
- Load the farm that you want to play.
- In the Multiplayer part of the Options menu, check whether your Server Mode is set to Friends-Only or “Invite-Only.”
- In “Friends-Only” mode, if you’ve launched the game through Steam or GOG Galaxy, any friend you have on the platform should be able to see your farm in the “Join” tab of the Co-op menu.
- In “Invite-Only” mode, you’ll need to click “Show Invite Code” and then send the code shown to your friend. In the “Join” tab of the Co-op menu, they can type the code in by selecting the “Enter Invite Code.”
Stardew Valley Multiplayer: Farming Together Tips
The most essential things to remember in Stardew Valley multiplayer are what you share with your friends and what you don’t share. These things remain separate:
- Inventory
- Skill levels
- Energy
- Relationships
If your real-life significant other, like mine, still thinks they’re going to woo Jodi away from her husband you can pursue your successful relationship while they bark up that tree.
What you do share:
- Farm space
- Gold
- Most importantly, your time
It gives the complete sense that in a shared game, the clock would march on regardless of who happens to be organizing their inventory or perusing Pierre’s store. What I forgot is just how much time I wasted doing those things while playing alone. I may well have spent equally as much of my days in some menu, causing the game’s clock to pause, as I did running about. In multiplayer, the clock ends for no farmhand, and the days fly by at a breakneck pace.
The sun is always setting hours before I feel like I’ve gotten done what I had hoped to accomplish (too realistic, right?) and without my partner and I ever manage to communicate what we’d be working on. The pressure to perform quickly isn’t a defect with the multiplayer design, but it’s a new way of thinking about playing that I had to adjust to consciously. If you certainly must pause, the host player can press the default key T to open the text chat window and type “/pause” to force freeze the game.
Necessarily, a friend will log off with something in their inventory that you needed. You can swipe what they held out on you by checking what looks like a dresser inside their cabin. If you choose to invite friends to one of your existing saves, they will build a new character and begin with a basic set of tools, no skill levels, and only the starting amount of daily energy. My partner was forced to dig through my discarded clothes and weapons to find hand-me-downs that would let him dive into the lowest levels of the mines, while also finding that he didn’t have the energy to water all the crops on my farm.
FAQs
[wps_faq style=”classic” question=”Q: Can you play Stardew Valley multiplayer?”]A: Multiplayer is an arbitrary game mode in which 1–4 players can play in the same world over LAN or the Internet. Multiplayer is available on the PC, PlayStation 4, Switch, and Xbox One versions, but is not available on the iOS or Android ports. Cross-platform play is not carried in Stardew Valley multiplayer.[/wps_faq][wps_faq style=”classic” question=”Q: How does a co-op work in Stardew Valley?”]A: To begin, each player will require a cabin to call home. Build enough places on one player’s farm to house each player, then back out to the Stardew Valley main menu and open the co-op tab. Your save file should look on the host tab. It’s even more comfortable if you want to start games with your friends afresh.[/wps_faq][wps_faq style=”classic” question=”Q: How many players is Stardew Valley multiplayer?”]A: How many people can play Stardew Valley multiplayer? Up to four players can play in a single game of Stardew Valley multiplayer. If you load a pre-existing game, Robin (the carpenter) will offer to make up to three additional cabins on your farm.[/wps_faq][wps_faq style=”classic” question=”Q: Can you marry each other in Stardew Valley multiplayer?”]A: Stardew Valley’s multiplayer mode will allow up to four people to play together online (but you can only marry one of them). No split-screen or local multiplayer will be available. Farmhands will live in cabins on your farm, be ready to farm and mine, fish and forage, and marry your town’s NPCs.[/wps_faq]