PSA: Your hat-wearing Stardew Valley animals might be breaking the farm

Stardew Valley 1.6 is here, and with it comes a curious bug that may break your farm depending on how you dress up your barnyard friends

ConcernedApe

Stardew Valley 1.6 is here, and with it comes a curious bug that may break your farm depending on how you dress up your barnyard friends. Reports of performance issues across multiple platforms started rolling in on Twitter in replies to Stardew creator Eric Barone, and after Barone investigated, he shared what he believes might be causing the problem: Hats.

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“If you are experiencing performance issues in Stardew Valley 1.6, remove all hats from pets,” Barone said. “We will address the problem as soon as possible.”

PSA: if you are experiencing performance issues in Stardew Valley 1.6, remove all hats from pets. We will address the problem as soon as possible

— ConcernedApe (@ConcernedApe) November 5, 2024

Why hats are causing the problem is anyone’s guess. The level of outlandishness reminds me of when Cities Skylines 2 imploded after trying to render teeth for every NPC, though that was the result of Paradox using AI to generate civilians. Barone still hasn’t found the answer for Stardew’s hat problems, but that didn’t stop him from creating a bit of lore behind the bug when one commenter asked for an in-game reason.

“There's rumors of a strange rash affecting pets' ears in Zuzu City and we just want to make sure those ears can breath for a few days,” Barone said in a response.

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If you’re struggling to take a hat off your favorite animal, Barone says you’ll actually want to put another hat on them. The process automatically removes the initial hat first, without adding the second hat.

Given how finicky Stardew Valley’s secret multiplayer mode on mobile is, it’s probably a good idea to de-hat the farm crew before trying to host or join a game.