Stardew Valley dev makes it clear Haunted Chocolatier is progressing well

Haunted Chocolatier will eventually be the next game from Stardew Valley creator "ConcernedApe" (Eric Barone), and the good news is that it's still coming.

What is it? Haunted Chocolatier is an upcoming indie RPG / simulation game. From the FAQ: "In this game, you will play as a chocolatier living in a haunted castle. In order to thrive in your new role, you will have to gather rare ingredients, make delicious chocolates, and sell them in a chocolate shop". There's a lot more to it than that though Barone says.

A lot of eyes are on it, with a lot of people waiting on it due to the success of Stardew Valley. Some people seem to think it will be abandoned, or ideas from it will just be put into Stardew Valley, but Barone has made it clear that's not the case. In a new blog post titled "Update: I’m still working like always" from January 28th, Barone said very clearly "I’ve been very productive lately on Haunted Chocolatier" and mentioned how it's okay for it to take a while. Video games take a long time to create - who knew huh?

Pictured - Haunted Chocolatier, Credit: Eric Barone / ConcernedApe

In the blog post the took the time to dispel a few myths about it that keep coming up:

“Haunted Chocolatier will be abandoned and the content will be added to Stardew Valley instead”
No. First, I am not going to abandon Haunted Chocolatier. But even if I did, I am not going to add it to Stardew Valley. Stardew Valley and Haunted Chocolatier are separate games. It doesn’t even make sense from a technical perspective, as Haunted Chocolatier is written from scratch, it’s not the same “engine” as Stardew Valley. You can’t just copy and paste Haunted Chocolatier into Stardew Valley.

“The Stardew Valley updates are being used to test out ideas for Haunted Chocolatier”

Nope. When working on Stardew Valley, I’m not thinking about Haunted Chocolatier, and vice versa. I wouldn’t “test something out” in Stardew Valley because that would be unfair to Stardew Valley, and also I don’t want to spoil ideas for Haunted Chocolatier by adding them first to Stardew Valley. Also, Stardew Valley is a different game, so you can’t really “test something” for Haunted Chocolatier in it in an accurate way.

“ConcernedApe is working on a new Stardew Valley update because he’s burnt out on Haunted Chocolatier”

No, I’m working on a new Stardew update because it’s a very popular game with a large, ever-growing playerbase, and I still have additional ideas for how to improve it.

“ConcernedApe said it’s not coming out until 2030″

I didn’t say that. I was asked in 2025 if it would come out within the next five years, and I said “I hope so”. This is very different than saying “it’s coming out in 2030”. The bottom line is, I don’t want to give a release date. The game will come out when it’s done.

An ending note simply mentioned that Barone will release it when it's ready and thanked people for their patience.