The developer of Stardew Valley simply earned the most difficult Steam achievement obtainable in his personal sport, eight years after it was launched.
In a post on X/Twitter yesterday, developer Eric “ConcernedApe” Barone revealed that on October 25, 2024, he formally earned the final remaining achievement he wanted for 100% completion of Stardew Valley. The achievement is named “Fector’s Problem”, and it requires the participant to beat in-universe minigame Journey of the Prairie King with out dying. Only one.2% of gamers had the achievement at the time Barone earned it.
Finally bought 100% achievements in Stardew Valley pic.twitter.com/hoaSmDnTWi
— ConcernedApe (@ConcernedApe) October 29, 2024
Journey of the Prairie King is an arcade sport the participant can entry in the Stardrop Saloon. It is a top-down, twin-stick shooter the place the participant should shoot enemies that seem in waves from all sides of the display whereas avoiding touching each enemies and their projectiles. The participant begins with 4 lives, and additional lives can be found as rewards, so in order to only beat Journey of the Prairie King it is not essential to by no means die. You simply must keep away from dying an excessive amount of.
What Barone did is significantly extra intense. It requires not dying in any respect, not even as soon as, a fairly difficult feat particularly should you’ve ever seen what gameplay of Journey of the Prairie King seems to be like. There are three phases complete, with the first stage together with 4 ranges plus a boss, and the second and third phases every together with three areas and a boss. The enemies get tougher and diversified the additional you go, and gathering good upgrades at sure factors is essential to survival, so there’s at the very least some factor of luck concerned too.
So though Barone made this ridiculous problem, it is not precisely shocking that he would battle to complete it himself on an everyday playthrough of Stardew Valley, particularly since he most likely has higher issues to do together with his time than observe Journey of the Prairie King. Congrats to ConcernedApe! Good luck to the remainder of us.
Stardew Valley stays a masterpiece even eight years later, with our re-review earlier this 12 months saying that “eight years of updates have grown Stardew Valley into a contemporary traditional with an countless checklist of engaging actions to finish and a deeply satisfying time administration problem to tackle.” Its newest replace, 1.6, is out now on PC and is lastly coming to consoles on November 4, 2024.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You will discover her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Received a narrative tip? Ship it to rvalentine@ign.com.