From Washington: Ten years is a long time in gaming. Whole studios have risen and collapsed in the span that Stardew Valley has been quietly winning over players worldwide, and creator Eric "ConcernedApe" Barone marked the milestone on February 26 with a 22-minute anniversary retrospective that ended with one of the more divisive announcements in recent gaming memory.
The two new marriage candidates coming in the upcoming Stardew Valley update 1.7 are Sandy and Clint. Sandy, who runs the Oasis shop in the Calico Desert, has been warmly received. Clint, Pelican Town's resident blacksmith, has not.
Barone saved the reveal for the very end of his retrospective, as reported by Kotaku and Rock Paper Shotgun. In a moment of deliberate theatre, he spent 20 minutes building suspense with an unopened envelope before finally declaring of the two characters inside: "It's their turn. It's their time." The chat, by multiple accounts, promptly exploded.
Sandy's inclusion drew little argument. She operates the Oasis in the Calico Desert, a region that only becomes accessible once players repair the town bus later in a playthrough. Her relative inaccessibility has given her an air of mystery that players have long found compelling, and game8.co notes she was among the most requested additions to the romance roster.
The Clint Problem
Clint is another matter entirely. The blacksmith serves a functional role, helping players upgrade tools and crack open geodes, but his personality has made him one of the game's more polarising figures. His in-game storyline has long centred on an unspoken, and somewhat uncomfortable, obsession with Emily, who is already a romanceable character. He lurks near her home, writes notes he never delivers, and repeatedly asks the player to give gifts to her on his behalf rather than approaching her himself.
The response on social media was swift. "Not a single person opens Stardew and goes yeah I wanna marry Clint," one user posted on X within hours of the announcement. Others described the news as arriving like a workplace catastrophe at the end of an already terrible day. Several players expressed particular frustration that the Wizard, another fan favourite, had been passed over in favour of the blacksmith.
Rock Paper Shotgun, to its credit, took the contrarian view, arguing that Clint's inclusion is "absolutely the funniest possible choice" and that the comedic value of the announcement might outweigh the community's genuine dismay. There is something to that reading: Barone is clearly not unaware of what he has done. The theatrical envelope reveal, the knowing pause, the community reaction he must have anticipated — it reads less like a stumble and more like a calculated provocation from a developer who knows his audience very well indeed.
A Decade of Solo Achievement
The marriage candidates were not the only news in the anniversary video. Barone used the retrospective to walk through the game's earliest builds, including footage from 2012 when the project was known as "Sprout Valley" and bore a much closer resemblance to the Harvest Moon games that inspired it. Scrapped concepts shown included an underground Goblin Village, and the video traced how the Community Centre became central to the game's structure over time.
In the video, Barone noted that while players have had the game for a decade, he has been working on it for almost 15 years, describing the experience as a "blur" that covers most of his adult life. He started the project as a solo effort, handling all art, music, coding, and writing himself, though he now works with a larger team to support updates and the business side of the game.
The addition of Clint and Sandy marks the first expansion of the romance roster since update 1.1 in 2016, which added Shane and Emily. As of update 1.6, there are 12 characters available for matrimony, along with Krobus, who can move in with the player as a friendly roommate. The new additions will bring that count to 14.
What Comes Next
Update 1.7 does not yet have a release date, and Barone is working on the update simultaneously with Haunted Chocolatier, his next game in which players run a confectionery store that happens to be haunted. Barone has recently noted that he is "not going to abandon Haunted Chocolatier," even as he splits his time between the two projects.
For those keeping score on the Clint debate: the more charitable read of his character, offered by some fans and by game8.co among others, is that his shyness and social anxiety are a more realistic, if less flattering, portrayal of loneliness than the game's more conventionally appealing bachelors. His heart events and dialogue frequently highlight insecurity and social anxiety, and because his character's progression is more subtle than some others', player opinions of him have long been divided. Whether that nuance will translate into a satisfying romance arc remains to be seen, and Barone has given away very little about what update 1.7's new heart events will actually contain.
What is clear is that ten years on, Stardew Valley retains the rare capacity to generate genuine passion in its community, whether that passion takes the form of delight, frustration, or an elaborate plan to divorce Clint and immediately marry Emily. Barone has compared the game to a child that has grown up and "left the house," arguing that it now belongs as much to the community and modders as it does to him and his team. On the evidence of this week's reaction, that community has no intention of going quietly.