Stardew Valley is now the highest-rated game on Steam

Daniel Sims

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Why it matters: As a foundational title in the "cozy game" subgenre, Stardew Valley has remained one of the most successful indie games for much of the past decade. With Steam player counts higher than ever over the past year, Eric Barone's pixel art farming simulator now also holds the highest user rating on the platform.

Steam250.com, which uses data from SteamDB to calculate cumulative review scores, currently ranks Stardew Valley as the most positively reviewed game on Steam. The site gives the game a score of 8.87, based on a 98 percent positive rating from 901,000 reviews.

The rankings reveal an interesting trend among top-reviewed titles. Two main categories dominate the list. One includes popular indie games such as Stardew Valley, Terraria, Vampire Survivors, Hades, Balatro, and Schedule I. The other features mostly Valve titles, including Left 4 Dead 2, Garry's Mod, and Half-Life 2. Notable outliers include Euro Truck Simulator 2, Black Myth: Wukong, and Baldur's Gate 3.

Indie games like Deltarune, ENA: Dream BB, and Bongo Cat are also among the top-rated releases of 2025. However, big-budget titles such as Split Fiction, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, and Kingdom Come: Deliverance II also stand out.

Steam250 updates its rankings periodically, so Stardew Valley may not hold the top spot forever. Still, its popularity shows no signs of fading. Although it has long been a staple in the life simulation genre, the game's recent major update has taken its success to a new level.

Version 1.6, which added new events and a new type of farm last March, brought Steam player counts to an all-time high, eclipsing the numbers from Stardew Valley's initial launch. Furthermore, player counts over the past year have remained consistently above any period before version 1.6's release. The game also sits comfortably among Steam's top sellers and is the most played title on the Steam Deck.

However, gamers shouldn't expect another major update in the near future. Creator Eric "ConcernedApe" Barone recently shifted his attention toward his next game, the long-in-development Haunted Chocolatier.

Although Barone announced the chocolate shop management simulator in 2021, progress stalled due to his work on Stardew Valley 1.6, which includes recent hotfixes for the console versions.

Haunted Chocolatier still does not have a release date, and it is unclear when new details will emerge. Barone has previously stated that the game will center on a single town, similar to Stardew Valley, but will feature more action-oriented gameplay.

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Just an FYI, I have steam installed on my phone and I can play star dew valley on it. 99% of my time playing it is on my phone waiting for things. I can't play my desktop save, but that's fine. I'm a dwarf fortress guy at home. But, yeah, if you have stardew valley on steam you can install it on your phone and play it for free
 
It’s kind of remarkable how Stardew Valley’s updates feel less like content drops and more like thoughtful expansions of its world. Version 1.6 didn’t just add new stuff — it deepened the game’s personality, which is probably why so many people returned.
 
Just an FYI, I have steam installed on my phone and I can play star dew valley on it. 99% of my time playing it is on my phone waiting for things. I can't play my desktop save, but that's fine. I'm a dwarf fortress guy at home. But, yeah, if you have stardew valley on steam you can install it on your phone and play it for free

There is also an iOS version

You can play steam games on your phone without streaming it from your desktop? How does that even work?
 
I like games like this for my Steam Deck. Pixel art does real well in that form factor of system. I prefer Core Keeper over Stardew Valley. A lot of the same systems but I think Core Keeper's survival aspect draws me more than the relaxing Stardew Valley. To each their own!
 
Stardew valley has a native mobile version. If you have Steam installed on your phone and are running android, you can install and play it
So steam recognizes you are running android and will license the Android version of the game to you? Does it install through google play? Is there like a guide to this? I’m intrigued and want to know more. I’m on iOS and like I said, I know there is an iOS version because my wife accidentally bought it under my AppleID. Does this also work for games like MTG? It’s free on both steam and on the respective mobile storefronts but I’d love to know the technical details of how this works if you can point me to them.
 
This proves the point people are mostly looking for fun games, less of super realistic but performance killing and shallow games. Or to put it the other way, good graphics is a good to have feature, assuming it game is fun and performs well.
 
Played a lot of Stardew Valley with my misses on my SteamDeck, actually a great game.

Because it’s so easy to run, SteamDeck lasts 8+ hours playing it as well, you can completely lose track of time on this one.
 
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