There is so much content in Stardew Valley that a full play-through will likely take you hundreds of hours. But it is so addictive that might not be enough! If this sounds like you, then we have you covered with enough Stardew Valley content to last you a lifetime.
If you have exhausted the base game of Stardew Valley, there is a whole wide world full of mods out there to reinvigorate your play through. To save you from testing out each one to see if it suits you, we have compiled a list of the 10 best Stardew Valley mods.
What Are Mods?
You might find yourself wondering what mods for video games are. Mods are user-made alterations that can change the look and feel of the game or even add entirely new gameplay elements. Mods are a great way to spice up your gameplay if you’re feeling tired of the base game, but you’re not quite ready to move on.
Modding Stardew Valley may seem intimidating, but it is actually quite simple. Getting into mods could be exactly what you need to reignite the embers of your Stardew Valley obsession.
If you can imagine it, there is probably a mod for it. You can easily become overwhelmed when wading through the endless tide of mods. So for this list, we have narrowed it down to the five best gameplay and five best aesthetic mods for Stardew Valley.
The 5 Best Gameplay Mods for Stardew Valley
These mods add quality-of-life improvements that make life on the farm a breeze.
1. Better Ranching
The Better Ranching mod helps you become a better parent to all of your beloved farm animals. By adding indicators above your animal’s heads, you can tell at a single glance what they need from you. You can immediately identify what cows need milking, what sheep need to be sheared, and who wants a pat. With the help of Better Ranching, your farm animals will never be happier.
Download: Better Ranching
2. NPC Map Locations
Time is money in Stardew Valley, and we all know the feeling of losing precious moments wandering around the map trying to give a special NPC their daily gift. The NPC Map Locations mod solves this problem by placing markers on the map showing you exactly where all of the NPCs are. This way, you can easily zoom over to meet them and make it back to your farm before your chickens even know you were gone. This mod also has an optional mini-map for the top corner of the screen, so you never get lost.
Download: NPC Map Locations
3. Gift Taste Helper
The Gift Taste Helper mod is extremely helpful if you indulge in the relationship-sim elements of Stardew Valley. With Gift Taste Helper, you can find out what every NPCs favorite gifts are by hovering over their birthdays in the calendar. Many Stardew Valley fans will know the struggles of googling an NPC’s favorite items every five minutes, and this mod solves that problem for good.
Download: Gift Taste Helper
4. Skull Cavern Elevator
Skull Cavern is a dungeon that you will find in the Desert. It is similar to the mines, but Skull Cavern is harder, has more floors, and has no elevator. The Skull Cavern Elevator mod creates an elevator on each fifth floor to save your progress, so you don’t have to restart on floor one every time you visit. The elevator operates just like the one in the mine, allowing you to pick up exactly where you left off on your last adventure. The Skull Cavern Elevator is a great mod for explorers and makes completing Skull Cavern actually seem possible.
Download: Skull Cavern Elevator
5. Stardew Valley Expanded
Stardew Valley Expanded is easily one of the best mods available for Stardew Valley. It is by far the most popular mod available, and for good reason. It adds so much content to the game that it’s almost like a whole new DLC pack. Stardew Valley Expanded contains 27 new NPCs, 50 locations, new farm maps, reimagined areas, new quests, crops, quest lines, plus much more.
Stardew Valley Expanded has far more content than we have time to delve into here, so we will save the rest for you to discover for yourself. If you feel like you have explored everything Stardew Valley currently has to offer, this is the perfect mod to keep you playing for another 1000 hours.
Download: Stardew Valley Expanded
The 5 Best Aesthetic Mods for Stardew Valley
If you prefer to keep the challenge of Stardew Valley alive, there are plenty of mods available that only focus on aesthetic upgrades.
1. Elle’s Seasonal Buildings
Elle’s Seasonal Buildings is an expansive mod that offers several new building designs to match popular recolors. Every building in the game comes with multiple colors and design options, allowing you to give Stardew Valley a new look to suit whatever vibe you are going for.
Download: Elle’s Seasonal Buildings
2. Rustic Country Town Interiors
Now that you have redesigned your building’s exteriors, the inside might be feeling a little left out. Rustic Country Town Interiors is like an interior designer was hired to give all the homes in Stardew Valley a makeover. It offers six different color palette options to match seamlessly with your other redesigns. It can be jarring walking into a building that has a flash new look on the outside and finding the base game interiors. This mod makes that transition much more smooth.
Download: Rustic Country Town Interiors
3. Vintage Interface
Stardew Valley is a beautiful game with a bright and vibrant color palette. But if you prefer your games to be a little more subtle and easy on the eye, the Vintage Interface mod replaces Stardew Valleys’ bright tones with a softer color palette. It also offers redesigns of plants and trees around your farm and the surrounding valley. There are lots of these recoloring mods to choose from, but Vintage Interface is a popular choice.
Download: Vintage Interface
Mods can be almost as addictive as Stardew Valley itself, and there can be times when you find yourself using many mods at once. The Generic Mod Config Menu adds an in-game UI that allows you to configure the settings of your other mods without having to exit the game. Any alterations you make are live, meaning you don’t need to restart the game after changing any of your settings. This makes it simple to manage your mods on the fly.
Download: Generic Mod Config Menu
5. Winter Grass
Winter in Stardew Valley may be beautiful, but having to replant all of the grass on your farm when spring rolls around is a tedious and expensive endeavor. Grass is also a vitally important resource for your farm. Without grass, you have to resort to buying feed from Marnie’s Ranch which becomes very pricey. With the Winter Grass mod, however, your grass is saved so your animals can remain fed throughout the entirety of Winter.
Download: Winter Grass
This is the tip of the iceberg in terms of aesthetic mods for Stardew Valley. If none of these suit your personal style, there are hundreds more available on Nexus Mods.
Breathe New Life Into Your Stardew Valley Farm
There are so many creative and interesting mods for Stardew Valley that it was hard to narrow it down to just 10. Stardew Valley has a passionate and dedicated modding community, but it is by no means the only one.
There are thousands of mods out there waiting for you to breathe new life into other long-lost gaming obsessions you might have.