In case you missed it, Stardew Valley creator Eric ‘ConcernedApe’ Barone has confirmed several times that there still remains one secret in the game that no player has ever found before.
Speaking to IGN in an interview this week for the game’s 10th anniversary, Barone made some clarifications surrounding the mystery of Stardew Valley's final secret.
“There's still a secret that no one has ever found. I don't think they ever will,” Barone told IGN. “It's basically a secret message that's in the game and it reveals something that actually isn't even true anymore.”
So obviously, it needs us to come along and fix it once and for all in an afternoon! GAMINGbible’s Olly Smith and Sara Heritage are going to put our shared single brain cell together and try to figure out what exactly this secret could be.
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Failing that, we’ll at least try to figure out where the best place to start is.
Olly’s Stardew Valley Hidden Secret Theories
The best place to start would be to look at Barone’s further comments in the IGN interview, in which he says “If you hide something in the code, it's going to all be found because people decompile the code and look at everything”.
He then implies that the secret may be hidden in the artwork, which gives us a massive hint at what we should be looking for. It’s some kind of visual secret or message as opposed to something you trigger with a specific action. It’s not like there’s a “cheat code” or anything which reveals the secret, because that would show up in the game’s code.
I think about this secret every time I come across something in the game I’ve never seen before. But it feels too obvious if it’s something like the graffiti that appears on the train or the drawings on the cave wall. Besides, these were discovered years ago and even confirmed by ConcernedApe after they were discovered.
Since he says the secret reveals something that “isn’t true anymore”, I’m willing to bet it was something added in an early update, maybe 1.1 or 1.2, which teased something for a future update that never ended up happening. Perhaps a detail around a certain character? A hidden feature found on their sprite?
Sara’s Secret Stardew Hopes
We know from the IGN interview that Barone adds that it was “a secret message that was basically announcing something that I actually shifted gears and that thing wasn't even true anymore, but it's still in the game. I just don't know if anyone will ever discover it because it's so obscure.”
For me, I reckon the best place to start is with what ConcernedApe DIDN’T say. We know it’s hidden within the game’s artwork (probably). What he didn’t hint at is where, which I think means we’re looking for visual anomalies that have been staring us in the face for almost a decade.
Let’s think about what it could unlock. Like Olly mentioned, it’s not something that appears in-game - code decompilers would’ve found that already. There go my dreams of a secret Stardrop Saloon menu that lets me romance Gus. Could clicking on the alien hidden in the Title Screen graphic point to a cipher, hidden in the wood knots? Could arranging in-game paintings on your farmhouse wall form a hidden note that hints at a new romance option?
I have no idea. But it’s fun to dream big, right? One thing I do know - Barone loves hiding things in plain sight. It’s been 10 years, so surely someone smarter than us will solve it soon?
Topics: Stardew Valley, Indie Games