How long does it take to "complete" Stardew Valley?

Terdin

Local Legend
The Summit scene after reaching Perfection visit marks the current definite end to new story content. However, a while after you reach Ginger Island, you might find yourself getting bored. At some point there, you might find yourself just doing stuff to earn money. Past that you need your own motivations to keep playing.
 

Nonak

Local Legend
pursuit of perfection ruins the experience of your game
Not for everyone... I often have it as a goal without rushing or stressing about it, its just when I have nothing to do I go "might as well complete this monster slayer goal, need it for perfection anyway" and then there's only a couple things left, why not push a bit. It's really just about what you enjoy doing and how you want to play.
 
It depends more on your play style and personal preferences I think. I have hundreds of hours in the game and I haven't gotten bored of it yet, but that might be partly because I progress more slowly and jump to different save files for different goals, so I've only unlocked late game content like... 3 or 4 times? Sometimes I also avoid certain story aspects for a while so I have more to do later.
 

Rahnee

Farmer
Personally I think it'd take quite a while to completely exhaust my interest, just because it's so open-ended and there are many different ways to tackle certain things. For example, I typically don't use a lot of animals, only 1 or 2 of the critical ones and that's all, but I'm recently playing a save in a Meadowlands farm wherein I went the opposite way and have tons of animals (4 barns and 2 coops full and counting ... that may not sound like a lot to some but for me it's a LOT 😜).

There's also remixed bundles to spice things up, different spouses to see heart events for, etc. I guess it depends on what it is about the game you enjoy (I once challenged myself to catch a very difficult fish with challenge bait ... but that didn't actually work out 😅).

I do run out of steam occasionally and put it down for a while, but then the interest will come back and I'll start it up again (maybe I'll be bold enough to try the beach farm at some point... seems challenging...)
 

NextXander

Moderator
Staff member
It's so addicting at the start that I just power through until Perfection, and then I abandon my farm shortly after.
 

Farmer Evie

Planter
I have never reached perfection or completed the community center or reached level 10 in every skill or... you get the point. But I enjoy starting new farms ALL THE TIME because I pick a different spouse, or I buy a Joja membership or I try to do crazy things (like not selling anything until community center is completed or romancing everyone). The great thing about Stardew is that perfection isn't required to be a 'good' player or to make it fun. You could just completely ignore the story and your journal and focus on filling your house with cats. Because that's definitely normal.
 

Kokopelli

Greenhorn
I have never reached perfection or completed the community center or reached level 10 in every skill or... you get the point. But I enjoy starting new farms ALL THE TIME because I pick a different spouse, or I buy a Joja membership or I try to do crazy things (like not selling anything until community center is completed or romancing everyone). The great thing about Stardew is that perfection isn't required to be a 'good' player or to make it fun. You could just completely ignore the story and your journal and focus on filling your house with cats. Because that's definitely normal.
I want to be more like you Evie! I’m hard wired to achieve perfection. I have stopped some of my farms from the exhaustion of the perfection goal.

My first play through took 16 in game years for perfection because I didn’t know what to do. I spent the first five in game years on my own before consulting the wiki
 

NestorGB

Planter
I have never reached perfection or completed the community center or reached level 10 in every skill or... you get the point. But I enjoy starting new farms ALL THE TIME because I pick a different spouse, or I buy a Joja membership or I try to do crazy things (like not selling anything until community center is completed or romancing everyone). The great thing about Stardew is that perfection isn't required to be a 'good' player or to make it fun. You could just completely ignore the story and your journal and focus on filling your house with cats. Because that's definitely normal.
I'm brewing on the idea of making a mushroom farm, were i am only allowed to sell mushrooms or their corresponding artisan produce. The protagonist would be Jack Morel, a teacher from Gotoro University. He moved to the valley to study the fungi of the Gemcoast. As years pass by, he slowly turns more and more into a shroom, (with Razzy's shrine of illusions) finally being a unrecognizable abomination, a so called "wereshroom" (like werewolf, just fungal, lol) and making A LOT of money through mushroom logs with mystic trees. I don't think he would marry anyone, maybe a gf or bf, like Leah maybe.
 
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