2026 will mark five years since the initial announcement and reveal of Haunted Chocolatier, the new chocolate shop sim game from Eric Barone, AKA ConcernedApe, best known for releasing Stardew Valley. And no, up to this day, there’s still no sign of a release window.
Barone has, however, posted an update on his blog about Haunted Chocolatier, mostly to debunk certain fan rumors and speculation. “I’ve been very productive lately on Haunted Chocolatier,” Barone says, “Yep, it’s taking a while to finish the game. That’s okay. I know, I know, I shouldn’t have announced the game so early. But I had my reasons.”
Barone then goes on to address fan concerns. First, regarding the rumor that the game will be abandoned and added to Stardew Valley, Barone states: “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.”
Next, regarding the assertion that Barone is using Stardew Valley updates to test out ideas for his new game, Barone states: “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.”
Finally, Barone also clarified that he is not, in fact, still working on Stardew Valley updates because he’s burnt out on Haunted Chocolatier. The reason for that is simple. Stardew Valley continues to be a “very popular game with a large, ever-growing player base”. To that end, Barone wants to keep working on it and still has ideas on how to make it better.
Barone ended the post by stating that he doesn’t want to give a release date for the game. “The game will come out when it’s done.”
While it’s definitely a bummer that we won’t see it for a while, I will at least take comfort in the fact that Stardew Valley has continued to be the gift that keeps on giving. The continuous updates add even more content and features to a game that’s already packed to the brim, and that alone makes me confident that whatever Barone’s cooking up is going to be fantastic.
Stardew Valley is now available on PC and consoles. Haunted Chocolatier is currently in development.
