Stardew Valley will now beat you unconscious and leave you for dead on a mountain if you use an out-of-bounds glitch to cheat
Mr. Qi is not amused
Stardew Valley's 1.6 update tackles a glitch that lets you see the end of the game not by removing it but by punishing you for doing it.
Let's rewind things a bit. The 'summit glitch' is nothing new in Stardew Valley - it's an out-of-bounds exploit (seen just below) that lets you access the mountain summit well ahead of when you're supposed to. You're not meant to be able to ascend the mountain until you've fully completed Stardew Valley, but this exploit lets you reach the mountain top whenever you want.
This went without consequence until now. The new Stardew Valley patch 1.6 has just launched, and one player on Reddit has discovered that if you use the exploit with the 1.6 update installed, you'll apparently get killed. Take a look at the four-minute video below for a complete look at the glitch and then the game's retaliation with the new update installed.
Mr. Qi is meant to greet the player for making it up the mountain after attaining the '100% completion' achievement, but he has a more threatening presence here. "Well, well, well... look who 'made it' to the summit," Qi says before chiding the player for being so self-obsessed that they thought they could cheat the game in the first place.
Qi then jerks towards you, and the screen goes black, accompanied by what can only be described as a 'thudding' sound effect. You then wake up in the hospital, where Harvey reveals someone found you "unconscious and battered" on the mountain. What's more, Harvey was forced to perform "emergency surgery" on you and advises you to be a little more careful next time.
That's a little messed up. Some Stardew Valley veterans are calling the new clip "creepy," while others are hailing solo developer ConcernedApe for the move, positing that maybe a better name for him would be "CleverApe," which I really appreciate. "I LOVE that instead of patching out the summit skip, he added this in. ConcernedApe is the best," adds a YouTube comment.
Take a look at our Stardew Valley 1.6 patch notes for a look over all the more noteworthy improvements and tweaks for the brand new update.
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Hirun Cryer is a freelance reporter and writer with Gamesradar+ based out of U.K. After earning a degree in American History specializing in journalism, cinema, literature, and history, he stepped into the games writing world, with a focus on shooters, indie games, and RPGs, and has since been the recipient of the MCV 30 Under 30 award for 2021. In his spare time he freelances with other outlets around the industry, practices Japanese, and enjoys contemporary manga and anime.