Does Stardew Valley 1.6 have crossplay? The complicated answer
Stardew Valley 1.6 may not have official crossplay or cross-progression across every platform, but some smart players have found technical workarounds between two specific platform options.
Stardew Valley highly emphasizes the social aspect of the game. With proper co-op support and flexible features that change according to whether a player is alone or playing with friends, both modes feature distinct experiences. Many players prefer to only play Stardew Valley with their loved ones, citing the benefits of a jointly-built farm.
The farming simulation game is available on multiple platforms, ranging from gaming consoles to PC and mobile. With cross-platform features becoming more widespread, many players wonder whether Stardew Valley has crossplay and cross-platform.
How to crossplay in Stardew Valley 1.6 for PC and mobile
PC and mobile Stardew Valley 1.6 players can crossplay through a LAN connection, but other platforms don’t have official crossplay.
Stardew Valley 1.6 does not support cross-platform play between PlayStation, Xbox, Switch, and PC platforms. After the Stardew Valley 1.6 update, the game does allow cross-platform play between mobile and PC devices. The problem with this is that there’s no official guide players can use to play with cross-platform friends, so it’s easy to assume Stardew Valley doesn’t have crossplay at all.
Players can join each other by sharing the server’s IP and then connecting through LAN. This will only work if the players are on the same network. Both players must be on the same version of the game to play together. Using a VPN to fake a LAN connection could work, though it’s unreliable and has a greater chance of failing.
Crossplay between PC and mobile players is likely available less because the developer wanted to add it specifically, and more because of game version compatibility. Since the PC and mobile versions of Stardew Valley 1.6 are very similar, both versions can operate on the same server. So while PC and mobile players can technically play together, the connection may be unstable and unreliable. The LAN requirement also restricts many Stardew Valley players from benefiting from crossplay.
Does Stardew Valley 1.6 have cross-progression?
While Stardew Valley 1.6 doesn’t have cross-progression, players can manually transfer their save files between PC and mobile versions of the game.
Like crossplay, Stardew Valley’s technical cross-progression is exclusive to the PC and mobile versions of the game. Players must install a file manager app to transfer data between both platforms. This method won’t work if fans want to transfer their data between PC and consoles. Users must ensure that both versions of the title are on the same update to avoid bugs or incompatibility issues.
It’s important to note that while transferring a mobile save to a PC version of the game is relatively straightforward, the same isn’t always true for when transferring PC data to the mobile version of the game. The PC version of Stardew Valley is usually ahead of the mobile version, and version incompatibilities may cause problems with transferring save files.
Like crossplay, this workaround for transferring progress between platforms is due to the PC and mobile versions of Stardew Valley 1.6 being very similar. It’s unknown if Stardew Valley will ever get proper cross-progression between platforms, so players will just have to make due with this limited workaround for the foreseeable future.
Hannan Mundia is a lifelong gamer. Don’t believe us? Just ask him. But don’t ask how many hours he’s spent playing. He’s been gaming since the age of three, and much of his live revolves around video games and the video game industry. Whether it’s a classic Legend of Zelda game from Nintendo, the newest Bethesda RPG, or something else entirely, you can bet that Hannan is ready and willing to play it.
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