Is Stardew Valley Cross-Platform?

Stardew Valley, the massive indie farming simulator, lets you and up to three friends run a farm together, via online play or couch co-op. However, since multiplayer was added post-launch and the majority of development is done by one person, there are a few modern features missing from the multiplayer. One of those features is cross-platform play, which isn’t in Stardew Valley.

Stardew Valley cross-platform details

Stardew Valley currently does not have cross-platform multiplayer, and it seems likely that it never will. That means if you want to play multiplayer, everyone will need to be in the same family of platforms, like Xbox or PlayStation. If one person is on Nintendo Switch and the other is on PC, you cannot play together.

Stardew Valley developer Eric Barone–also known as ConcernedApe–has not commented on cross-platform multiplayer in recent years, but did mention back in 2018 that “technical barriers are very high,” expressing that it’s a feature that he would want to add, but it might not be possible. The developers comments are reminiscent of those from Bethesda’s Todd Howard, who discussed why Fallout 76 doesn’t have cross-play, citing difficulty in adding it to a game that wasn’t initially designed for it.

One of the other important things to know about Stardew Valley multiplayer is that multiplayer saves are stored by the host. That means in order to play on your co-op save, the host needs to be present, otherwise you cannot access the save file.