‘Stardew Valley’ Creator Wanted You To Be Able To Have Affairs and Break Up Marriages

During a recent podcast interview, Stardew Valley creator Eric Barone opened up about how the cozy life sim could have featured a more chaotic romance system. The developer revealed that he had considered allowing players to cheat with already-married partners, stirring up soap opera–style drama in the town. Hey, I know all you Robin lovers are punching the air right now.

Desperate Housewives of ‘Stardew Valley’

Eric Barone was recently the surprise guest on comedian Bobby Lee’s podcast TigerBelly. He spoke at length about the development of Stardew Valley. However, things got a bit zesty when the developer shared his thoughts on romance in the game. According to Barone, he had wanted to include more drama in Stardew Valley, allowing players to break up marriages and sow chaos in the village.

“You want to know the real answer? It’s because I didn’t have enough time to make everyone in the game a marriage candidate. Honestly, I’ve said that I would like you to be able to marry Robin or Demetrius and break up their marriage and cause chaos in the town. But have all the consequences of that. Like, not make it like, ‘Oh, it’s fun and happy,’ but like everyone is now mad at you. Everyone now hates you.”

The Stardew Valley creator, however, reiterated that the more complex relationship system never came to fruition simply because he doesn’t have the time to program it. “I would love to be able to do all kinds of stuff in the game. But it’s just so much work.” Hilariously, when Bobby Lee suggested it wasn’t the “tone of the game,” Barone pushed back, saying, “It kind of is. There’s a little bit of stuff in Stardew Valley where it gets kind of ‘too real,’ you know?”

Why You Can’t Marry linus

Following the conversation, Bobby Lee asked why other Stardew Valley NPCs, such as Linus, can’t be married. Barone explained: “See, some of them [don’t] make sense. Linus doesn’t want to be [with just one person]. He’s a ‘rolling stone’ type, you know. Players were originally getting on my case like they wanted to be able to have Linus move on to their farm. That was a big request from fans because he’s living in a tent, and people felt bad for him. And I was, like, no, I’m not going to do that.”

To prevent players from being able to move in with Linus, Barone then revealed he coded it into the game for the NPC to automatically reject them outright. “I actually added in a cutscene where you can ask Linus to move on to the farm, or not. But if you do, he’s like ‘No, I will not do it.’” So, yeah, Linus lovers are kind of out of luck. It doesn’t seem like the wayward traveler will be getting a romantic option in future updates.

While Barone has touched on this before, it’s interesting to see that the romance system could have been more in-depth. The idea of the entire town being angry at you over an affair sounds hilariously devious. But like many features, Barone has said he simply doesn’t have the time to implement it. Which makes sense, given that he recently admitted Haunted Chocolatier is still years away from release due to his continued work on Stardew Valley.