Stardew Valley has reached a new record for concurrent players on Steam thanks to the release of the 1.6 update. The new concurrent record comes over eight years after its full launch back in February 2016.

According to Steam Charts, Stardew Valley has reached a new peak concurrent players on Steam, sitting at 144,817 concurrent players at the time of writing. Not only does this put Stardew Valley in the top five games by players currently, it beats the game's previous record by about 50,000 players. The previous peak was set in January 2021 at 94,479, with Stardew Valley's monthly peak hitting between 40,000 and 50,000 over the past few months.

This new record is likely thanks to the latest big update for Stardew Valley, update 1.6. This update features a ton of new content for players to enjoy, like a new farm layout that focuses on raising animals and new festivals that take place throughout the in-game year. It also has some smaller, sillier adds, like the ability to chug mayo straight from the jar. The update is a free edition to the game, but is currently only available on PC. It's live now on Steam and GOG, with PC Game Pass players receiving the update very soon, and consoles to follow later down the road.

Developer Eric "ConcernedApe" Barone, is currently working on his next game, Haunted Chocolatier, which is about running a chocolate factory in a haunted castle. Barone had previously stated that he paused development of Haunted Chocolatier to work on Stardew Valley update 1.6.