'I feel like no one will ever find it': Stardew Valley creator says there's one big secret still lurking in the game, and no, you can't datamine it

Stardew Valley is basically the videogame equivalent of Star Wars at this point—even if you've never seen a single movie, you probably still know who Darth Vader is. You'd think being an all-encompassing phenomenon would mean that every stone had been turned and every secret discovered.

Well, nope. As Barone tells IGN in a recent interview celebrating the farming sim's 10-year anniversary, mysteries still lie dormant in Pelican Town. "There's still a secret that no one has ever found. I don't think they ever will," he said. How very tantalising.

"Maybe I'll reveal it someday," Barone continued. "But the problem with the secret is that it's … it's basically a secret message that's in the game and it reveals something that actually isn't even true anymore."

Of course Barone is too darn tight-lipped and has too much self-control to spill what it is. "It was revealing a thing about– Do I want to reveal it or not? Well, that's all I'll say. It was a secret message that was basically announcing something that I actually shifted gears and that thing wasn't even true anymore, but it's still in the game. I just don't know if anyone will ever discover it because it's so obscure."

Stardew Valley farm animals sitting around a player character. There are two Void Chickens, a Duck, and Rabbit in front of a coop during the fall. — (Image credit: ConcernedApe)

Dang. So close to spilling the beans, and yet. As to how nobody's managed to discover it even with years of datamining and fans picking out even the tiniest of details from their thousands of hours playing, Barone says it's because it's a secret that can't be uncovered through sifting through the game's code.

"There's certain ways to hide messages that can't really be datamined," he said. "If you hide something in the code, it's going to all be found because people decompile the code and look at everything. If you, say, hide it in the art or something—if it's a secret message that's hidden in the artwork somehow—then people can't really discover that as easily. They have to see it."

Is this going to inspire an influx of players combing through every texture in the game to try and figure out just what the hell Barone is talking about? Maybe. It certainly won't be me, but I'm sure there are some truly dedicated people out there willing to find out exactly what the message said. "I feel like no one will ever find it," Barone teases. "But I hope someone does. It'd be interesting."

Mollie spent her early childhood deeply invested in games like Killer Instinct, Toontown and Audition Online, which continue to form the pillars of her personality today. She joined PC Gamer in 2020 as a news writer and now lends her expertise to write a wealth of features, guides and reviews with a dash of chaos. She can often be found causing mischief in Final Fantasy 14, using those experiences to write neat things about her favourite MMO. When she's not staring at her bunny girl she can be found sweating out rhythm games, pretending to be good at fighting games or spending far too much money at her local arcade.

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