Reception

Stardew Valley received "generally favorable" reviews, according to review aggregator Metacritic. Jesse Singal writing for The Boston Globe wrote that the game was "utterly compelling, lovingly crafted", and provided players with numerous varieties of activities to do without falling into a cycle of repetitive activities. Elise Favis of Game Informer found that watching her autistic brother play Stardew Valley helped her understand his condition better, as the game provides enough structure of present events with enough of a view of future events to allow her brother to enjoy the game.

Yasuhiro Wada, the creator of the Harvest Moon series that Stardew Valley was inspired by, stated that he was "very happy" with the game, as it has shown to him that Harvest Moon was not a forgotten series and continued in spirit. He also stated that the approach taken by Barone with Stardew Valley was able to retain the freedom that he had wanted to keep in the Harvest Moon series that had been lost in the later games, with more focus on animation and graphics. Gamasutra named Barone one of the top ten developers for 2016, identifying that he had "single-handedly" developed something that "breathed new life into a genre" otherwise dominated by the Harvest Moon series. In 2017, Forbes named Barone one of their "30 Under 30" people to watch in the area of video games by citing his commitment towards making Stardew Valley.

Many media outlets praised Stardew Valley for its LGBT options and representation, notably including the option for the player character to marry one of 12 villagers regardless of gender. Gayming Magazine praised the option for a player to engage in same-sex marriage, while also criticizing the lack of racial diversity. Paste described the game as being anti-capitalist, citing the negative portrayal of the fictional Joja Corporation.

Sales

Stardew Valley sold over 400,000 copies across Steam and GOG.com in two weeks, and more than a million within two months. Valve reported that Stardew Valley was in the top 24 revenue-generating games on Steam during 2016. Journalists noted that the gaming community had shown support for Barone for the game; while there had been some players who obtained the game illegally, these players were impressed with the game and stated they planned to purchase the game, while other players made offers to help pay for those who could not afford the game. An official sheet music book for piano and album was released in 2018 by label Materia Collective.

By the end of 2017, Stardew Valley had sold more than 3.5 million copies across all platforms. The game was also the most downloaded on the Nintendo Switch for 2017, despite only being released in October of that year. Sensor Tower also estimated that for the game's first three weeks on the Apple App Store, it had earned more than US$1 million in revenue. By May 2022, Stardew Valley had sold over 20 million copies across all platforms, with 13 million on PC.