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Stardew Valley Multiplayer: From scratch is the quickest and easiest way to start a multiplayer farm. In the “co-op” section of the main menu, you can either join a friend’s farm or start your own.
If you want to be able to invite your friends immediately, set the number of “starting cabins” to the number of farmers who will join. To participate in co-op, a partner must have a cabin. Another option is the Four Corners farm map, which is specifically designed to accommodate four farmers on the same land with their own farm space.
In the multiplayer section of your options menu, you can also invite a friend via LAN or by sending them the invite code. Within the co-op section of their main menu, your co-op partner will find options to join a LAN game or enter an invite code. You can invite friends to play through your Steam or GOG friends list by selecting the “invite friends” option. Split-screen play is also available.
Stardew Valley co-op: how to play split-screen
Open your options menu and scroll down to the multiplayer section if you have already started up a farm and have a cabin for a friend. You will be prompted to press start to join the game after clicking “start local co-op”. You can do this either with a gamepad or by pressing the escape key on your keyboard. It should now be possible for your extra players to play on their own section of your screen.
Stardew Valley multiplayer options
Since Stardew added multiplayer, other updates have added more options and farms to make playing together easier. Here are the options you will have access to while playing multiplayer.
Starting Cabins
The cabins will be pre-built on your farm, one for each co-op farmer you invite.
Cabin Layout
Nearby cabins will be built close to the main farmhouse while the separate layout makes it feel like you have your own space. Don’t worry if you don’t like the default placement. Robin can always move them.
Profit Margin
If you’ve been playing Stardew co-op, you’ll probably notice that more hands mean more work gets done and you may find it very, very easy to stack up cash. If you want to give your team a bit of a challenge, you can lower the profit you earn on items.
Money Style
Separate money means that your friends and you have separate wallets – good if you have a friend who won’t stop buying seeds when you’re trying to save for that backpack upgrade. Shared money refers to the fact that all farm hands have one bank account.
Building Move Mode
While playing your farm, you can change this setting. It determines who on the farm can ask Robin to move a building. It can be set to “everyone,” “host only,” which means the owner of the farm, or “building owner only,” which means your friends cannot move each other’s buildings.
Stardew Valley co-op: Tips for farming together
The most significant things to remember in Stardew Valley co-op are what you share with your friends and what you don’t share. These things remain separate:
- Inventory
- Skill levels
- Energy
- Relationships
What you do share:
- Farm space
- Gold (unless playing with “separate” money enabled)
- Most importantly, your time
It makes complete sense that in a shared game the clock would run regardless of who happens to be organizing their inventory or perusing Pierre’s store. I forgot how much time I spent doing those things when I was alone. My days were probably equally spent in a menu, causing the game’s clock to pause, as they were actually spent running around. The days fly by at a breakneck pace in multiplayer, where the clock never stops.
Since the sun sets hours before I feel like I have achieved what I had hoped for, this is extremely realistic. The pressure to perform quickly isn’t a defect with the multiplayer design, but it’s a completely different way of thinking about playing that I had to consciously adjust to. When you must pause, you can press the default key T to open the text chat window and type “/pause” to force freeze the game.
Eventually, a friend will log off with something in their inventory that you need. You can find out what they held back from you by checking what looks like a dresser inside their cabin. When you invite friends to one of your existing saves, they will create a new character. They will begin with a basic set of tools, no skill levels, and only the starting amount of daily energy. My partner had to dig through my abandoned clothes and weapons to find hand-me-downs that would help him dive into the lowest levels of the mines, while also finding he did not have enough energy to water the crops.