Stardew Valley's new Gradual Seasons add-on makes each game year feel more immersive

While we wait for news on update 1.7, many players have turned to modding to enhance their Stardew Valley experience.

Some of the best Stardew Valley mods are ones which fundamentally change an aspect of the gameplay or narrative to give players bigger challenge or better rewards.

But in some cases, players download mods which introduces a little more immersion in the world that's been crafted.

Stardew Valley players can now pick up a new free mod which does exactly this by making the changing of the seasons feel a little more gradual.

Aptly named the Gradual Seasons mod, the add-on essentially adds more subtle changes to the way seasons change over time.

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Stardew Valley's Gradual Seasons mod subtly changes how the passage of time works

It means that on the first day of Winter, you're not overwhelmed by the sudden change in scenery as the world goes from brown leaves to a sudden sheet of snow covering Pelican Town.

Instead, modder opoiuuuu has introduced a cleverer way of blending two seasons. Gradual Seasons makes it so that in the last week of each season, the next one slowly creeps in.

In the last week of autumn for example, patches of snow settle across the ground, trees drop their leaves and gather snow, and it builds up in other places such as on rooftops and in gardens. Rainy days also start turning into snow days, too.

By the time you actually get to the last day of autumn, most of the valley actually looks like winter, so the change on the first day of the next season is a small step rather a jump.

At this point, the previous season lingers for the first couple of days, still giving you a sense of that gradual change.

The mod does the exact same thing with the other seasons. In the last week of summer, autumn colours spread through the valley and leaves start falling from the trees. In late winter, snow starts to melt away in patches as spring grass and blossoms break through.

It still uses the game's own seasonal art, so everything remains looking like Stardew Valley. It follows the in-game date, and nothing extra is saved. You can add or remove it at any time without breaking the game.

There are a lot of other excellent details included in the Gradual Seasons mod that I haven't mentioned here, but it's a good to go check out. If you'd like to try it, go ahead and download it from the Stardew Valley page on Nexus Mods.

It might be good to pair with the Longer Seasons mod as well, which allows you to change the number of days in a season, or the number of months altogether.

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