How to Set Up a Co-Op Farm in Stardew Valley

You know what’s amusing? “Co-op” is a term commonly utilized in both gaming and farming. You have cooperative games, but you also have farming co-ops where people get together to share land and resources and whatnot. Apparently, it’s a pretty good method of farming, at least from what I’ve read. Let’s implement the notion into Stardew Valley! Here’s how to set up a co-op farm in Stardew Valley.

Co-op was added to Stardew Valley right at the tail end of last year, both of the couch and online varieties. With co-op, you can either convert your existing single player farm into a co-op one, or start an entirely new farm from scratch. Multiple players can play splitscreen on the same console, and you can also invite players over through whatever multiplayer service your platform uses, as well as through a LAN connection.

How to Set Up a Co-Op Farm in Stardew Valley

To start a new co-op farm, just click “co-op” from the title screen menu, followed by the “Host” tab and “Host new farm.” The game’ll start right up, though it’ll be on you to build the initial infrastructure. Remember, all participating players will require their own cabins to join. 

Speaking of, once you’ve got your farm started, you can send invites to your friends. An important thing to note here is that Stardew Valley does not currently have cross-platform functionality (with the exception of Windows and Mac), so everyone has to be playing on the same kind of platform for this to work. Also, if you’re playing on a console, everyone will need to be subscribed to that console’s online service. 

Anyway, once you’ve sent out invitations from the options menu, your friends will see your new farm on the co-op menu on the title screen, at which point they can join. One important thing to remember: the farm’s save data is stored on the host’s computer, which means if the host isn’t playing, nobody can connect to the farm. 

If you happen to have friends in your immediate vicinity, you can also get a split-screen game going either on a co-op farm or a single-player farm, provided once again that everyone has their own cabin already built. All platforms except Nintendo Switch can support up to four-player split-screen, while the Switch can only do two players.