Stardew Valley 1.54 Update: How to Unlock Split-Screen Mode

The recent Stardew Valley 1.54 update isn’t just a great excuse to dive back into one of the best indie games ever made (or just slowly walk away from your Animal Crossing addiction). It’s a chance to finally play the addictive RPG/farming tile with a couch co-op friend thanks to the game’s new split-screen mode.

While PC players have been enjoying Stardew‘s new split-screen co-op update for a few months now, the update’s recent release on PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch means that everyone can get in on the fun and finally share a farm (and a couch) with their friends.

So how do you actually unlock this new feature so that you can force your friends to water plants and gather materials while you romance the townsfolk all day? There are two ways to enable Stardew Valley‘s split-screen mode, and both of them will bring you one step closer to convincing your loved ones that chopping trees eventually becomes fun if they just do it another hundred times.

Ask Robin to Build Your Split-Screen Partner a New Cabin

If you’ve already started a Stardew Valley farm (or you want to do things the “traditional” way), then you’ll need to ask Robin to build you a cabin before a friend can join you for split-screen play.

Thankfully, the process is easy enough. You can ask Robin to build you a cabin right away, and the cost of a cabin will only set you back 100 gold and either 10 stone, 5 wood/10 fiber, or 10 wood based on your style preferences. Additional players can move into the cabin right away, and the cabins can be upgraded up to three times. Unlike other buildings, cabins are even added to your farm as soon as you ask for one to be built.

Once you’ve built a cabin, you’ll still need to enable multiplayer. To do so, open the game menu, go to the multiplayer section, and choose “Start Local Co-Op.” From there, you should just be able to press start on the other player’s controller to allow them to jump into the game.

There are a couple of things about this cabin you should probably know if you’re going to get along with your Stardew partner. First off, you have the ability to kick the other player out of the game at any time by demolishing this cabin. Doing so will convert the other player’s inventory into a chest that you’ll find where their cabin was. We don’t recommend doing this unless the relationship has deteriorated or you just enjoy awkward conversations.

Along those same lines, you should also be careful about what kind of cabin you build as there doesn’t currently seem to be any way to modify the existing cabin without deleting it and forcing everyone to go through the creation process again. Some players have found ways to get around this process in the PC multiplayer mode, but as it stands in split-screen play, you’re better off making sure everyone agrees on the cabin’s exterior and location the first time around.

Choose to Enable Split-Screen From Stardew Valley’s Advanced Menu

If you’re starting a new Stardew Valley profile with the 1.54 update installed, you can actually just create a farm with a cabin already built and skip some of the resource gathering steps.

To do so, just go to Stardew Valley‘s “Advanced Options” menu. You should find it on the screen you use to choose your character and farm type. There, you’ll find an option to enable split-screen co-op. You should also find that there are extra cabins on your farm as soon as you start a new game with that option enabled, but you’ll still need to enable multiplayer via the same steps outlined above.

There’s not necessarily a disadvantage to using this method when you’re starting a new game (as long as you’ve got someone who wants to play the game with you), but don’t feel too bad if you skipped this option as building an extra cabin the in-game way is pretty easy.

How to Manage Profit Margins and Other Stardew Valley Split-Screen Rules

As you might imagine, adding another player to Stardew Valley makes certain things easier but can also make things too easy.

That’s why you’ll have the option of adjusting Stardew Valley‘s multiplayer profit margin. By setting the profit margin to either 100% (default), 75%, 50%, or 25%, you’ll adjust the buy and sell price of many items. Lowering the profit margins means that acquiring certain items will take roughly the same amount of time (or longer) as it would if you were playing the game solo.

There are a few other restrictions and rules that apply to Stardew Valley‘s split-screen mode that you should know about before starting:

• Both players can marry separate partners or choose to marry each other
• Sleeping and entering festivals are decided collaboratively
• Mine and museum progress is shared between players
• Either player can purchase buildings but upgrades can only be initiated by the owner of that building
• Money can be shared or split using the ledger at the Mayor’s house
• Experience goes to whoever completes an action. Players don’t share experience from foraging items, and experience for killing monsters or chopping trees goes to whoever gets the final blow
• Luck is determined by averaging out each player’s individual luck