You can build Pam a house in the new Stardew Valley update

Stardew Valley's big 1.3 update is out today, in beta form at least. The most exciting part is definitely the new multiplayer system, but in addition to that there's also a bunch of new single-player content, and we've been digging in to find all the new stuff.

Perhaps the coolest thing we've found so far is a new "Community Upgrade" option that becomes available from Robin the carpenter after you've fully upgraded your home. For the low low price of 500,000 gold, you can build a home for Pam, the bus driver who lives in a trailer with her daughter Penny. 

We haven't had a chance to complete the purchase yet, so we're not sure what Pam's new house will look like—or if there are further community upgrades offered after that one. Either way, it's a cool bit of story that will let me invest some of my wine riches back into the community. 

There's plenty of other cool stuff in the new patch, such as the option to build additional shipping containers as well as a new garden pot that will let you grow crops year-round indoors (outside of the Greenhouse). Here's some other bigger stuff we've found so far:

  • New friendship events with Linus, Willie, and Krobus.
  • New "Night Market" event, where a handful of merchant ships come to the Stardew Valley docks.
  • Horses can wear hats.
  • An "Auto-Grabber" that automatically harvests from cows, sheep, and goats.
  • You can change your profession via a "Statue of Uncertainty" in the sewers.
  • Three new fish.

There's plenty of other small additions (check out this Reddit thread that's being updated as people find new stuff). It's worth noting that the beta is still fairly buggy and prone to crashes, so tread carefully and back up your save files if you want to jump in right away.

Bo Moore

As the former head of PC Gamer's hardware coverage, Bo was in charge of helping readers better understand and use PC hardware. He also headed up the buying guides, picking the best peripherals and components to spend your hard-earned money on. He can usually be found playing Overwatch, Apex Legends, or more likely, with his cats. He is now IGN's resident tech editor and PC hardware expert. 

Latest in Sim
PowerWash Simulator 2 screenshots
'More evolution than revolution': PowerWash Simulator 2 is coming late 2025, and it's bringing online multiplayer and split-screen co-op with it
A child stands on top of a dinosaur exhibit, hugging the nose of a dinosaur skull.
As a real life museum employee, I'm a bit confused by the amount of pirate ghosts in Two Point Museum—but it's not going to stop me trying to make the most realistic exhibits I can
A citizen of a city
A lot is going on for Cities: Skylines' 10th anniversary—from freebies to new creator packs—but there's still a big ol' elephant in the room
Staring eyes in a face covered in oil
Death Stranding 2's PS5 release date is in June, let's hope it doesn't take 8 months to hit PC this time
Cities: Skylines 2 screenshot - street level at night
Cities: Skylines 2's asset editor remains a distant dream: Colossal Order is still working on it but says it's 'proven more technically challenging than initially anticipated'
Town in Tales of Seikyu with two townsfolk sat on the stairs
Tales of Seikyu is just your regular farming simulator, apart from the fact I've got shapeshifting abilities and I'm engaged to a pretty persistent kappa
Latest in News
A photo of an Intel Core Ultra 9 285K processor surrounded by DDR5 memory sticks from Corsair, Kingston, and Lexar
Fresh leak suggests Intel's on-again-off-again Arrow Lake CPU refresh is back on the menu (boys)
A Colorful RTX 5080 and its box
Three lucky folks in India can win the dubious honour of buying an RTX 5080 GPU at Nvidia MSRP
The Facebook 'Like' emoji logo is seen in this photo illustration on 22 August, 2023 in Warsaw, Poland. (Photo by Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Get ready to argue with your weird Uncle on Facebook again. Meta is rolling out its new fact checking solution to it's 190 million users in the United States
Gabe Newell in a Valve promotional video, on a yacht.
Go ahead and complain the discounts aren't as steep as they used to be, but Steam just had its biggest year ever for seasonal sales
Valve Steam Deck OLED handheld PC
'The future of hardware at Valve is bright': Valve celebrates the success of Steam Deck and Steam OS
Key art of the videogame Lunacid, showing a pale, long haired knight in purple armor contemplating a purple, flaming sword surrounded by the different phases of the moon.
One of my favorite indie RPGs is getting a follow-up made with FromSoftware's 25-year-old Super Mario Maker for first person dungeon crawlers