Stardew Valley continues to be the gift that never stops giving. Between regular updates from developer ConcernedApe and an active modding community, the farming life is certainly thriving on all fronts — and it won’t stop anytime soon, with an unofficial Baldur’s Gate 3 crossover mod making its the way to PC.
New Project : Baldur’s village. Baldur's Gate characters will settle in Stardew Valley!
— Xun (@XunHe1145) April 27, 2024
Hi, let me introduce to you our new crazy project .We are making a Stardew Valley mod that will include a new map and residents from Baldur's Gate 3. The characters we are currently working… pic.twitter.com/O4I3p1AUYH
Announced on X / Twitter user @XunHe1145, the project is a collaboration with various fan artists that whisks all the main characters from Larian Studios’ highly-popular title away to a small, idyllic town called Baldur’s Village. Custom art and dialogue are included as part of the package, with four companions currently in the works: Astarion, Shadowheart, Gale, and Halsin.
As for Wyll, Karlach, and the rest of the gang, they will arrive in due time. “To answer all the questions about the main characters: they’ll all be there, but my Apple Pencil needs more time,” says Xun. It’s a fair and reasonable request, considering that the team is doing this for free.
Players can also expect the following planned features:
- A new, standalone map for Baldur’s Village
- Four different building styles in the village
- Astarion, Shadowheart, Gale, and Halsin NPCs with custom portraits for at least the first three
- A full romance questline for Asterion, with the possible similar treatment for other companions
The team has yet to set a release window for the Stardew Valley mod, but is eyeing to drop it on Nexus Mods before Baldur’s Gate 3‘s first anniversary on 3 August. As it’s being worked on “a small team of amateurs”, Xun notes that progress will be slow. The predominantly Chinese-speaking team has put up a separate call for translation services as well, so multilingual individuals can shoot their shot and lend them a hand.
As it stands, the artwork packs a lot of charm. The pixellated Shadowheart and Asterion portraits are particularly impressive, blending in perfectly with the aesthetics of Stardew Valley. In the meantime, update 1.6 offers plenty of content to tide over the wait, and it’s proving popular among the community — the farming simulator recorded a peak player count of 146,159 on Steam, surpassing its previous record of 94,879 set in January 2021.
The patch is currently exclusive to PC, but there are plans to bring it to mobile devices and consoles. Coupled with the upcoming Stardew Valley: Festival of Seasons Concert Tour, it certainly is a good time to be a Stardew Valley fan.
Si Jia is a casual geek at heart – or as casual as someone with Sephiroth’s theme on her Spotify playlist can get. A fan of movies, games, and Japanese culture, Si Jia’s greatest weakness is the Steam Summer Sale. Or any Steam sale, really.
Edwin Teo
