Eric “ConcernedApe” Barone sent ripples through the farming sim community this week when he seemed to suggest he was “open to” letting players cheat on their partners in Stardew Valley so long as there were narrative repercussions for doing so, but in a slew of replies on social media, he’s now confirming he was talking strictly in hypotheticals and has no plans of doing anything like that.
The confusion stems from an interview Barone did with Game Informer in which he was asked if there were any changes he’d previously considered for Stardew Valley but decided against for fear of negative reactions from the player base. Barone replied by saying he’s half-jokingly entertained requests from players to romance already married characters like Caroline and Demetrius, which would of course involve infidelity, but decided against it for moral reasons. For the purpose of full transparency, here’s the full, unedited quote from Barone:
“I mean, one thing I have mentioned before, which I kind of was half joking about. It was like, people want to marry Caroline or Robin or Demetrius, and in order to do that, you would have to break up families in town. And personally, I’m against that on a moral level. But I feel like in a sandbox game, you should be able to do wicked things and then face the consequences. I wouldn’t just make everyone be totally chill about it. Everyone would hate you. It would cause a lot of chaos and disaster and suffering, and people would be angry, and you would ruin the family. I would be open to doing something like that, but I wouldn’t baby people about it. There would be very serious consequences. But then part of me is like, ‘Well, maybe this is just too real.’ Maybe Stardew Valley is supposed to be, to some degree, an escape from those kinds of things. It’s too realistic, you know?”
Many outlets and online commenters including GamesRadar+ interpreted the above quote to mean Barone hasn’t completely taken the idea of infidelity in Stardew Valley off the table, even if it only exists as a hypothetical for now. That said, Barone took to Twitter to blast off a few fairly sharply worded replies to online speculation and confirmed, in no uncertain terms, there will be no cheating on anyone’s spouse in Stardew Valley any time soon.
“The quotes are taken out of context, and don’t capture the whole spirit of what I was saying,” reads one such reply. “They make it seem like this is something I am planning on adding, but if you read the actual interview it’s clear that I’m not going to add it.”
In another tweet, Barone says, “the only thing I had ever ‘considered’ was allowing players to break up Pierre/Caroline or Robin/Demetrius, but even that is probabl too heavy and serious, and would be a ton of work to adjust all dialogue and tone of everyone in town in consequence, and Grandpa ashamed of you.
“It was just some theoretical idea I’ve toyed with. I don’t condone doing it either. but there is precedent for things like that in Stardew, like going to the DARK SHRINE OF SLEFISHNESS to turn your kids into doves, and then they haunt you forever.”
Obviously, I can’t speak for any other outlets or commentators, but I can say with confidence that it wasn’t our intent to present an out-of-context view of Barone’s words, but I also understand that it can be frustrating when you feel something you’ve said has been misconstrued, especially in such a public-facing environment. Regardless, it’s good to have confirmation from the developer himself that Stardew Valley couples will continue to be faithful to each other.
Better yet: Eric Barone says Stardew Valley and Haunted Chocolatier will forever be AI-free because people “should take priority over a soulless machine”
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