The developer of Stardew Valley just earned the most challenging Steam achievement available in his own game, eight years after it was released.
In a post on X/Twitter yesterday, developer Eric "ConcernedApe" Barone revealed that on October 25, 2024, he officially earned the last remaining achievement he needed for 100% completion of Stardew Valley. The achievement is called "Fector's Challenge", and it requires the player to beat in-universe minigame Journey of the Prairie King without dying. Only 1.2% of players had the achievement at the time Barone earned it.
Finally got 100% achievements in Stardew Valley pic.twitter.com/hoaSmDnTWi
— ConcernedApe (@ConcernedApe) October 29, 2024
Journey of the Prairie King is an arcade game the player can access in the Stardrop Saloon. It's a top-down, twin-stick shooter where the player must shoot enemies that appear in waves from all sides of the screen while avoiding touching both enemies and their projectiles. The player starts with four lives, and extra lives are available as rewards, so in order to just beat Journey of the Prairie King it's not necessary to never die. You just have to avoid dying too much.
What Barone did is considerably more intense. It requires not dying at all, not even once, a pretty challenging feat especially if you've ever seen what gameplay of Journey of the Prairie King looks like. There are three stages total, with the first stage including four levels plus a boss, and the second and third stages each including three areas and a boss. The enemies get more difficult and varied the further you go, and collecting good upgrades at certain points is critical to survival, so there's at least some element of luck involved too.
So even though Barone made this ridiculous challenge, it's not exactly surprising that he would struggle to finish it himself on a regular playthrough of Stardew Valley, especially since he probably has better things to do with his time than practice Journey of the Prairie King. Congrats to ConcernedApe! Good luck to the rest of us.
Stardew Valley remains a masterpiece even eight years later, with our re-review earlier this year saying that "eight years of updates have grown Stardew Valley into a modern classic with an endless list of enticing activities to complete and a deeply satisfying time management challenge to take on." Its latest update, 1.6, is out now on PC and is finally coming to consoles on November 4, 2024.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
