Eric Barone has regrets about not fleshing out Stardew Valley’s characters more, but likes that it’s so open ended since it makes things ‘more personal’ for each player
Outside of cultivating the season’s most profitable veggies or endlessly fainting in the mines, a lot of the time you spend in Stardew Valley is working alongside its townspeople. You develop friendships and relationships with Pelican Town’s villagers over the years, but no matter how long you spend giving gifts and completing requests, Stardew doesn’t really offer a final ending to a lot of its storylines.
There are a surprising number of questions Stardew has left unanswered which Eric Barone has regrets about, but there’s a good reason nothing has changed in the nine years since Stardew launched. In an interview with PC Gamer, when asked if there was anything he would’ve liked to do differently during development, Barone stated “I think I would have probably spent more time fleshing out the characters more.
“This is something I actually have mixed feelings about, because some of the character story lines, they’re kind of left as cliffhangers almost. There’s no resolution to certain things, like Mayor Lewis and Marnie’s secret relationship.”
Even though you don’t get the answers you want from the game, that hasn’t stopped players from sharing lore ideas and deep dives ever since Stardew Valley’s launch in 2016. We’ve seen mods created to help round-off some of the storylines left unanswered or give characters more cutscenes and dialogue too.
Creating these sought-after endings is something Barone has considered, too, but the idea of having something so final is offputing when it could be left open for interpretation. Especially given the creativity inspired by these open endings already on show.
“I have ideas for how I could resolve these things,” ends Barone, “but part of me is almost like, I wonder if I should, because it’s closing the book in a way.
“I kind of like that it’s open ended, and it gives people the ability to kind of, themselves, like finish the story in their head, which makes Stardew Valley more personal to every person, because there’s a lot of room for your own interpretation on things.”
