The 1.6 update originally launched on Windows PC on March 19, but the console and mobile versions took Barone and team a little longer than expected. “I’ve always released on PC first, because it’s sort of a ‘beta test’ to make sure there are no critical (e.g. save-destroying) bugs, which are a much bigger deal on consoles because they can’t be patched out as quickly,” Barone said in response to a Stardew Valley player. “However, I never intended for the delay to be this long.”
As for the 1.6 update itself, it ended up being a lot bigger than expected, with a new animal-focused farm type, a three-day spring festival, two mini festivals, and an event for summer — on top of pages and pages’ worth of smaller fixes. As always, the update is entirely free. Since the 1.6 update was released on PC in March, it has received several smaller, mostly bug-fixing updates. The console and mobile release in November will include everything through the version 1.6.9 patch, Barone said.
