Stardew Valley creator confirms game's biggest conspiracy theory is actually true

Stardew Valley is filled with little secrets and tips that players can share widely. Some experienced farmers have been able to give advice or pass on details that speed up money-making. Over the many years since the game’s release, players have believed in a conspiracy theory that has been debated over and over, and now the developer has finally confirmed the theory.

For years, players have theorised that farming crops from left to right is faster than harvesting them in the opposite direction of right to left. While many proposed this, it was also shut down by some of the community. Now, ConcernedApe has spoken.

Stardew Valley has received plenty of updates over the years and has grown into a classic

Apparently the conspiracy was correct all along, however, it wasn’t intentional. ConcernedApe spoke out on the idea saying that harvesting crops from left to right was 100ms faster, but it was a bug that never got fixed. In the latest notes for the upcoming patch 1.6 there’s a note saying “Fixed bug where it was faster to harvest left-to-right than right-to-left.”

Confirming it on his Twitter account, the developer informed fans that yes, “The left-facing harvest animation was 100ms longer than it should've been.” So, that clears that up, then. Millions of fans on Reddit are now vindicated in their thoughts, but the small time save will be no more come the release of update 1.6 on 19 March.

Among the details of the update are several new batches of content for the farming sim; we’ll get a new major festival, new winter clothes for villagers, new items and crafting recipes, 100+ new lines of dialogue, plus 8-player multiplayer for PC owners. This will likely be the last large content patch for Stardew Valley as the developer will be moving on to their next game, Haunted Chocolatier. We can still expect bug-squashing patches, but this is likely goodbye to new content.