Stardew Valley has basically become the Tolkien of cozy gaming

Stardew Valley has basically become the Tolkien of cozy gaming | PC Gamer Skip to main content Open menu Close main menu PC Gamer THE GLOBAL AUTHORITY ON PC GAMES US Edition UK US Canada Australia Subscribe Sign in View Profile Sign out Search Search PC Gamer Games Hardware News Reviews Guides Video Forum More PC Gaming Show PC Gamer Clips Software Codes Coupons Movies & TV Magazine Newsletter Affiliate links Meet the team Community guidelines About PC Gamer PC Gamer Magazine SubscriptionWhy subscribe?Subscribe to the world’s #1 PC gaming magTry a single issue or save on a subscriptionIssues delivered straight to your door or device From$1Subscribe now Don’t miss these Life Sim All the Stardew Valley 10th anniversary announcements, including new romance options and a giant Pelican Town desk mat to replace your map keybinds Life Sim Stardew Valley 1.7: The farmer’s almanac for key details and news on the next big update Life Sim May I have the envelope, please? 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When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. (Image credit: ConcernedApe) Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Pinterest Flipboard Email Share this article 0 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter PC Gamer Get the PC Gamer Newsletter Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team. Contact me with news and offers from other Future brands Receive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over. You are now subscribed Your newsletter sign-up was successful Want to add more newsletters? Every Friday GamesRadar+ Your weekly update on everything you could ever want to know about the games you already love, games we know you’re going to love in the near future, and tales from the communities that surround them. 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From first-look trailers, interviews, reviews and explainers, we’ve got you covered. Signup + Once a month SFX Get sneak previews, exclusive competitions and details of special events each month! Signup + An account already exists for this email address, please log in. Subscribe to our newsletter It happens multiple times a week in online fantasy reader circles: Someone says they’re new to fantasy, or a former avid reader returning as an adult, or otherwise looking to join the space by asking what they should read first. The answer that fantasy fans love to give, inevitably, is The Hobbit. I see it often enough that it almost feels like a gag, but so many fantasy lovers still really do think you should start with Tolkien.There’s a similar phenomenon in cozy gaming circles where new or returning gamers ask where they should begin and unless they give caveats that would eliminate it (and sometimes even if they do) the favorite answer from cozy gamers, perhaps even more unanimously than Middle Earth to fantasy fans, is Stardew Valley. (Image credit: FlashShifter)Stardew Valley is officially 10 years old this week and is still treated as the default entry point to this corner of the hobby. Even with its overnight success back at launch in 2016, becoming the poster child of the genre it revitalized wasn’t a given. Related articles 10 years later, I still can’t believe Eric Barone thought Harvest Moon fans would hate Stardew Valley All the Stardew Valley 10th anniversary announcements, including new romance options and a giant Pelican Town desk mat to replace your map keybinds The best games like Stardew Valley on PC I remember putting a lot of hours into H1Z1 around the same time as Stardew, arguably the first battle royale to really put the shrinking death circle concept on the map even though it took inspiration from things like Minecraft Hunger Games servers and Arma 2. For a variety of reasons, it was completely supplanted by Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds and Fortnite within a couple years and nobody talks about H1Z1 anymore.As the list of games like Stardew Valley kept growing, I thought the same could eventually happen. Some other indie farm sim would come along and do everything just a bit better. Or else the Story of Seasons developers, formerly of Harvest Moon, would crash into the PC market screaming