Stardew Valley creator revealed a cut farm map and expects fans to be upset about it

To celebrate the 10th anniversary of Stardew Valley, Eric "ConcernedApe" Barone released a special video whose headline news was the confirmation of two new marriage candidates. But alongside that, he took viewers on a tour of the game's early builds – and casually showed off a feature that people are now wishing had made the cut.

In one prototype from 2013, when the game had been in development for just over a year and already carried the Stardew Valley name, there was a fully functional farm map built right into the in-game interface.

"This is like the weirdest time for the game. I feel like it's like Stardew Valley hit puberty here. So you would actually buy animals and buildings from your in-game menu rather than go to Robin. And there was that farm map you just saw. That was pretty cool, actually, that farm map. I bet you guys are gonna be mad at me that that's not in Stardew Valley anymore."

The map offered a complete bird's-eye view of the entire farm – which would have been extremely useful for planning crop layouts and building placement. It never made it into the final game, and Barone didn't explain why.

Around that same early period, the game was "a little bit more of a simulation concept than an RPG" – and it seems that as the concept shifted, a number of features got left behind along the way.