A new Stardew Valley mod allows for NPC companions to randomly drop by and hang out at your farmhouse, adding a feature that fans have long wanted to see included, and bringing the agricultural adventure a little closer to Nintendo’s Animal Crossing.
Stardew Valley is a beautiful world, but especially when you’re back at home, getting ready to put your feet up after a long day toiling the field, it can be a lonely one, with only yourself and the occasional scarecrow for company. Farmhouse Visits, created by mistyspring, and available for free on Nexus Mods, aims to solve that problem. Professionally made and surprisingly detailed (there’s nothing worse than downloading new character and socialising mods, only to find the dialogue text full of spelling errors), it’s a welcome addition to Stardew Valley’s already impressive mod roster, making your homestead, and by extension the whole of the game, feel that little more alive.
With Farmhouse Visits installed, NPCs will randomly stop by at your house, bring you gifts, and comment on your building work and decor. How often they visit will depend on the closeness of your relationship – more hearts, more visits – but there’s also a full customisation menu that allows you to set how many visits you want per day, what time they should start and end, and even how “verbose” your visitors will be. And if they’re coming round too often or starting to get on your nerves, you can blacklist them, and never see them again. Hopefully it won’t come to that, but even in the idyllic world of Stardew Valley, you’ve got to have boundaries.
Animal Crossing, Nintendo’s open-world farming adventure, contains a similar feature already – your neighbours will occasionally drop round, and you can walk them around your house, showing off your prized items and ornaments. Stardew fans have long wanted to see something similar, and now, thanks to Farmhouse Visits and mistyspring, they’ve got it.