Even On Console, Stardew Valley Controller Support Isn’t Great

When Eric “ConcernedApe” Barone announced the console ports for Stardew Valley in June 2016, he called the game’s controller support, “less than ideal,” and said it would be updated for Playstation 4 and Xbox One releases. As of launch on Playstation 4 today, the controller support is still, well… less than ideal.

It isn’t an unmitigated disaster — walking around feels better with a controller than it does with a keyboard and mouse, and the fishing minigame is definitely easier. The problem is that the game still requires you to use a cursor for some things, like claiming quest rewards or doing inventory management. It’s very difficult to control that cursor with a controller.

It’s not just me who feels this way: I’ve seen a few people on the (super chill) Stardew Valley subreddit also voice complaints about the game’s controller support. Some fans had hoped that today’s console release would lead to better controller functionality across the board.

When asked to comment, Stardew Valley publisher Chucklefish, who handled the console ports, said they did make changes to how the cursor works. “We’ve accelerated the cursor, and it now slows down when it moves over something clickable,” a Chucklefish representative said in an email. “We’re also making some small quality of life changes in specific places… These changes aren’t in the current build, but will be patched in early in the new year.”

While that’s good to know, it doesn’t get to the heart of the problem: the cursor existing at all. When the game launched and I saw that I’d need to use the cursor to change the colour of my character’s hair in character creation, I groaned. Moving those sliders to where I wanted them to be was near impossible. Now I’ve gotta go get the Wizard to change my hair colour for me.