22 best Stardew Valley mods to elevate your experience

Stardew Valley was started as a Harvest moon clone by Eric Barone but later the scope kept increasing and we ended up getting one of the best farming sims ever. I have personally sunk into almost 500 hours in it and can’t get enough.

After my first playthrough in vanilla Stardew Valley, I started experimenting with mods and adding a few mods really elevated my experience in my second playthrough. It is not entirely about cheating but mostly quality of life improvement and additional content. So if you are also looking for a fresh Stardew Valley experience, this recommended list will save you the time of searching for them individually.

I am deviding the mods in few categories.

Here are my hand-picked Additional content mods

Stardew Valley Expanded

All around a great mod to expand the game. This mod is like a free fan-made DLC for the game that adds 27 new NPC, 50 location maps, 200 new events for different characters, 27 fishes, and two farm maps. This mod also tweaks the already beautiful vanilla area for little surprises. This mod also tries its best to tie everything together with a reimagination of the whole map, and adds new music, questlines objectives, crops, events, and many more additional details.

 

Ridgeside Village

Is the good old Stardew Valley town looking kinda boring to you after visiting the town shop of the most hated NPC in the town; Pierre who brags about your crops like his own and closes the shop on Wednesday (Kind of a running joke)? Try this  Ridgeside Village mod which adds an entire new town with 50+ NPCs, new items, new shops, new festival events, brand new soundtracks, quests, and more.

 

Winter Grass

I am trying to not add the mods that make the game easier but the ones that enhance the experience. You can argue that this mod makes the game easier but I think it just removes the annoyance of grasses dying off in winter. Not having enough heys is not a very fun experience. You can always go buy some but that is just plain annoying to me so I am including this mod that keeps the grasses alive through winter.

DeepWoods

Has it ever come to your mind that the Secret Woods is kinda lacking? This is another additional content mod that adds new areas in the Secret Wood. So Secret Woods becomes more than just a Hard Wood farming spot. Overall this is a pretty area to go and chill.

Six Winter Crops

In winter you can not farm anything unless you repaired the greenhouse through community building collection. So you probably go to the mine, or desert and fiddle around with your farm and then get bored. This mod allows you to plant six new winter crops over the cold winter to keep you busy and cash flow going.

Note: You should download the improved version from the Stardew Valley forum instead which includes new balance changes and stuff.

So that’s the end of the addition content mod section. Now let’s add some quality of life mods as well.

 

Stardew Valley quality of life mods for better experience

NPC Map Locations

We all have experienced it. Stardew valley NPC all has their own personal schedules, work, and places to go. So sometimes it is kind of annoying to locate NPCs when you need them most. I remember looking for Linus everywhere for his quest completion. After 2 minutes of searching (3 in-game hours) found him against the wall of the bathhouse. This mod is a great addition to locating all the NPC easily instead of searching for them blindly. Just hit M and you can see their little icons all over the map.

 

Simple Crop Label

 

Another amazing mod. I hate forgetting whatever crop I have planted. This mod simply enables a tooltip of the crop planted which is so simple but so useful.

 

Ui Info Suite

In Minecraft, you have to debug a menu that shows useful data and visual clues so that you can understand better what is going on. This is like that but for Stardew Valley. It tells you your daily luck without watching TV every day, Shows the number of tiles a sprinkler or scarecrow covers, and many more useful stats like those without feeling like you are cheating.

 

No Fence Decay

I just hate that decaying fence and replacing them. Fences cost very small but what a great annoyance it is. This mod makes it so that the fences never decay.

 

Skip Intro

 

The intro is nice and charming but it gets boring after a while and you just want to jump on the farm as soon as possible without the bright white intro screen flash banging you. This mod removes the intro.

 

Range Display

If you don’t want to use UI info suit thinking it makes the game too easy but also want to know the range of different items, this mod is for you. It shows the range of sprinklers, scarecrows, bee houses, and junimo huts so you know how far apart they need to be placed and how to effectively and efficiently use them.

 

Jump Over

This mod let you jump over the fence. That’s all. Little mod but very handy.

 

Automatic Gates

I always open a gate to go to the other side and almost never close it. This mod opens gates automatically when you approach and closes when you leave. Making the game much more fluid.

 

Farmer Helper

Have you ever planted a seed too late by mistake only to watch it die when the new season comes? This mod tells you as a warning if you try to plant a seed too late in a season. This also warns you about plants and animals that need tending when you try to sleep. This is what your grandpa would be like if he was alive.

 

Teh’s Fishing Overhaul

Fishing becomes kinda boring after a while. This mod let you completely overhaul and fine-tune the fishing. Like how much trash or treasures would you catch to how a fish would behave. It also adds new fish and to make the fishing more fun you get a better reward when you perfect catch a fish with a streak bonus and much more.

 

Categorize Chests

Let you choose the item types you want each chest to store. Then you can place all matching items into a given chest at the press of a button.

 

Night Owl

Passing out at 2AM is annoying. I admit that this is more of a cheat than an improvement but if you love to work on your farm nonstop, this mod lets you do it.

Okay, I think we have installed enough mods. One of the best ways to keep the game fresh may just be some visual changes. Below mods, don’t add any functionality to the game but only change the visuals.

 

Best Stardew Valley Visual Enhancement Mods

Better Artisan Good Icons

Just use it. This mod makes jelly, pickles, wine, juice, and honey icons based on the fruit, vegetable, or flower used to make them. Easily tell at a glance what types of wine, jelly, etc you have in your inventory!

 

Elle’s Seasonal Buildings

This is a resource pack for Stardew Valley that let you replace the visuals of all buildings on your farm with brand new colors and visuals. great way to keep the visuals fresh.

 

Elle’s New Barn Animals

This adds different skins for different barn animals, icons replacement for Marine’s shop, wool and cloth item recolors etc.

 

Medieval buildings

Just look at those visuals. This mod fits perfectly with the game. If you are looking for a different look but also very fitting pixel art, look no more. Medieval buildings is an awesome visual replacement for just that.

 

Stardew Anime Mods

Replaces the vanilla portraits and expressions with more anime-style ones. A lot of people love this type of art style (including me) and you may like it too.

Bonus: Xtardew Valley

Ever wanted to romance with the characters and have intimate relationship quests and acts? This is a fun mod just for that. This mod adds a lot of lewd events for different hasbandos and waifus *wink* *wink*. Be prepared though, this mod has a long list of required mods so if you don’t install them first then it won’t work.

And with that, this is the end of the list. Let me know if I missed any amazing mod so that I can try that too. Enjoy!