It was inevitable, wasn't it? Stardew Valley, which added multiplayer last year, now has a battle royale mod called Battle Royalley. If enough people start using it, you should be able to join 100-player fights to the death, complete with loot chests housing swords, bombs, slingshots and healing items. Last farmer standing wins.

Players will be spread around the map at the start of each round and the play zone will gradually shrink until, eventually, the battle is confined to a small corner of the map. You can chop trees and craft fences to use as cover, hide behind bushes for surprise attacks, and jump on a horse to gallop away from a sticky spot.

If you host a server, you can choose where the storm closes in on, as well as pick chest placement and player spawn locations. Instructions for how to do that, along with an installation file for the mod, can be found on its Nexus page.

If you host, you can also choose exactly how many players you want to join a match. The mod's author Ilyaki suggests 100—I'm not sure how well it will run (Stardew Valley defaults to four-player multiplayer, although you can increase that with mods), and presumably it'll be rare to get that many people playing the mod at once. But this is the kind of thing that could take off, at which point you'll probably be able to find full games. 

Here's a short clip of what to expect.

If you have battle royale fatigue but you still want to mod Stardew Valley, check out Tom's list of the best mods here. And if you want to focus on multiplayer, Lauren's guide to the best tips and mods lives here. 

Stardew Valley creator Eric "ConcernedApe" Barone announced earlier this month that he was parting ways with publisher Chucklefish and going it alone as a self-published indie. But it turns out that he's not really "going it alone" in the strictest sense at all. In fact, he's putting a team together to help him continue to work on Stardew Valley.

That's actually bit of a double-twist, as Barone has also said previously that he wants to devote all his time to the new game he teased last year. But he just can't quit Stardew Valley. 

"While there have been times in the past where I felt burnt out, and maybe even said that I wanted to move on, I always find myself coming back to Stardew Valley," Barone wrote in a new developer blog post. "For one, I keep getting new ideas for ways to improve and expand upon the game. This world is so full of potential, I could probably work on it for the rest of my life." 

"There’s also such a wonderful community surrounding the game… and I like making you guys happy. I’m extremely grateful to all of you for supporting my work and creating this wonderful Stardew Valley community. I wouldn’t be where I am today without you. And knowing that there’s still tons of people out there who love the game and would be extremely happy to get new content motivates me to keep working." 

His commitment to Stardew Valley is so great, in fact, that he's put his new, as-yet-unrevealed project on hold so he can work on a new free content update for Stardew Valley. But he still wants to be able to work on his new game, too—there are just not enough hours in the day to do it all. That's part of why he'd given thought to wrapping up Stardew Valley completely. Instead, following the release of the 1.4 update, he's going to try to get some help. 

"This is going to be a big change for me... I’ve always worked alone, and working with a team is a whole new ballgame," Barone wrote. "However, just as I did with Stardew Valley originally, I’m just gonna go for it, and have faith that I can rise to the occasion and make it work. My hope is that the new team will help take some of the workload off me, so I have enough breathing room to divide my time between my new game and Stardew Valley." 

Barone acknowledged that the console update schedule is lagging: The 1.3 update still isn't out on PS4 and Xbox One, and there are some technical issues on the Switch and Vita that need to be addressed. Getting those issues addressed are his "top priority," Barone said, even ahead of new content, although he pointed out that he does not work directly on the console editions of the game. 

"[Console updates] are done by Sickhead Games, so there’s nothing I can personally do to have an effect on that process, beyond setting it into motion," he explained. "I am also doing what I can to see the issues with Switch multiplayer get fixed, but that is also not something I can directly accomplish. So when I do work on new content, it’s only when I have no current avenue for addressing these higher priority issues."

Barone said that even with a team in place, he'll continue to have full control over the direction of Stardew Valley, and promised that there are some aspects of the game that he'll never turn over to others, such as music and writing. "But when it comes to programming, fixing bugs, administrative/business work, or even pixel art... I think I’d be okay with having some help," he said. 

Stardew Valley's creator Eric Barone, aka ConcernedApe, will begin self-publishing the game later this month following a partial split with publishing partner Chucklefish. 

It's an amicable divorce: Barone said on his developer blog that he needed Chucklefish when he released the game because he was an industry novice, but now he feels like he's ready to go it alone. "I think self-publishing is the end-goal of most indie developers, and I’m happy to be in a place where that’s possible," he said, adding that we can expect more announcements about the future of the game "soon".

In a statement, Chucklefish—who will continue to publish mobile and Switch verisons of the game—said it was "proud to be a part of the Stardew Valley story".

Released in early 2016, Stardew Valley remains one of the best games you can play on PC right now. It's endlessly relaxing, has an active mod scene, and its glorious food is inspiring real-life chefs. If you're after tips and tricks, they're this-a-way.

Sometimes life's pretty stressful—like when you're waiting for the results of a crucial election day that could determine the future of your country, hypothetically. In times like those, nervously tapping your foot for 10 hours doesn't quite shake the stress out. It's almost enough to make you want to drop everything and go buy a farm. Alternatively, you can look at pictures of artfully composed, perfectly manicured videogame farms, sigh, and feel slightly at peace for the next three minutes of your life.

Nearly three years after release, Stardew Valley remains one of the most played games on Steam. A lot of those people are likely playing Stardew Valley in mulitplayer, but for others I think it's more zen, as they set out to realize the perfect farm layout they've meticulously designed before even starting a game. Thanks to the Stardew Planner, you can draw a farm in your browser, and the candy colored designs people come up with and post to the FarmsofStardewValley subreddit put my heart at ease. Then there are the actual in-game creations people post to upload.farm, a repository of more than 136,000 farms.

Let's just look at some really nice farms for a minute.

Listen, I know the 'Souls-like' label needs to die—but RamenYum's Hard Mode Stardew Valley mod is so challenging I reckon it merits the comparison. 

After earning loads of dough, mastering combat and generally breezing through their first few playthroughs of the cutesy farming sim, RamenYum wanted more. Their Hard Mode mod increases monster damage by 200 percent. It ups monster health by 50 percent. It cuts crop profits by 50 percent. And it increases crafting recipe materials by 100 percent.  

"The mod's objective is to make the game more difficult without losing the general great feeling of Stardew Valley's gameplay," explains the project's creator. "It is designed to make combat more challenging without being annoying, and to make all money-making strategies more difficult without feeling too tedious or punishing. It still plays just like vanilla, but harder!

RamenYum says by upping the challenge in such a way, "every minute of every day feels more important", and that in turn even the most tedious of tasks become more rewarding—not least delivery quests in town. 

More information on Hard Mode lives here. With darker nights and Halloween on the horizon, let me also point you towards Makoace's Fall Heirloom Crops Overlay and Jessbot's Spirit's Eve Mill. I like the look of those, too.

If you've played a Dragon Quest game in the last 32 years, you're probably familiar with the series' enemy blue slimes. These wrathful creatures bounce around with the utmost hateful violence, seeking to mow down all adventurers in their path. Feared and loathed by all, they represent all that is unambiguously evil in video game antagonists. And now you can encounter them in Stardew Valley.

This mod, entitled Dragon Quest Monsters, lets you replace all of Stardew Valley's mine dungeon enemies with their corresponding Dragon Quest enemies. So Stardew Valley slimes turn into the wretched DQ blue slimes, bats turn into Drackies, duggies turn into Muddy Hands, and big slimes turn into the Crownless King slime.

Look at this asshole:

While the mod creator writes that it's something they "did out of boredom", there's the vague suggestion that more monster replacements may come soon. If there was a mod for changing all of Stardew Valley's NPCs and enemies into blue slime, I would definitely install it.