Stardew Valley Expanded (SVE) is the mod that makes the king of all cozy games even bigger and better. Stardew Valley is an incredible game, and not many people would argue with the idea that it is almost single-handedly responsible for bringing back farm-sims in a big way and basically setting the stage for the massive explosion of cozy games as a niche. Stardew Valley Expanded is one of the most popular fan-made mods for Stardew Valley and it does something (with ConcernedApe’s blessing) that Stardew fans will love: adds hundreds of hours of content to the base game.
Even better, Stardew Valley Expanded is clearly made by a fan who loves and understands what makes the base game great. New areas, new characters, and new events all feel like they naturally belong and the modder FlashShifter does a great job of making it feel l
Installing the Stardew Valley Expanded Mod can be intimidating for someone who doesn’t have a lot of experience installing mods, but the good news is that installing this mod isn’t that much more complicated than normal and even a complete newbie can pull it off (and I break everything tech I touch – so I’m a very good case study for this).
So let’s dive in!
Step By Step Guide to Install Stardew Valley Expanded
Here is the step by step guide to downloading the Stardew Valley Expanded (SVE) mod.
Step 1: Create a Backup of Your Game
There’s always a chance something can go wrong, so it’s important to back up any game files you really care about. If you’re ready for something completely know and don’t really care you can skip this step, but I still recommend doing this so you can always fall back to the old file if something messes up during installation.
Step 2: Install the SMAPI Mod Loader by PathosChild
You need a mod installer to install mods and the SMAPI Mod Loader is the one that you need in order to load SVE. This mod loader can be found HERE or HERE and will be the first of several you need to load to get everything working.
The good news is that SMAPI is designed for installation of mods and is fairly easy to get setup. The bad news is that the SVE mod is so huge that you will have to download some supporting mods for SMAPI to ensure a smooth transition to adding the SVE mod.
Once it downloads unzip so its in a folder (recommend on your Desktop to make it easy to find).
At that point double click on the folder and look for the little box that says “install on Windows” right beside it. This should be labeled as “Windows Batch File” under Type. Double click on this and you should see a Windows Command Box pop up that looks like this:
Just follow the instructions, making sure to put it into your Steam copy of Stardew Valley, and press enter. That’s it to install this mod.
Step 3: Find the This PC Search Screen
Get to the screen on your PC so you can find the “This PC” in the right hand tab. You’re looking for the ability to search your home machine. You want to find this screen because the search needs to be for your whole PC to find the exact folders you’re looking for.
You want to type “steamapps” (no space) into the search. This step does tend to take a while.
Step 4: Find the Stardew Valley Folder in Steamapps
The game files you’re looking for are in the common section of steamapps. What does this mean?
The folder on the location bar to the left of search should look like this:
Search Results in This PC > Steamapps > common > Stardew Valley
Once you’re in this folder scroll down. You will see a very familiar looking chicken by Stardew Valley Launcher, which is the unchanged Stardew Valley. The base game.
If you scroll a little further you’ll see a yellow chick (yes it is a chick, not an odd blowfish despite the art) staring towards the right-hand side of your screen that is labeled StardewModdingAPI.
This will become very important, so you need to confirm that it is in fact there if you want the Expanded Stardew Valley installation to go well.
Step 5: Install The Stardew Valley Expanded Mod
This mod is found at our old friend Nexus and it’s not hard to figure out which one it is (it’s the one labeled Stardew Valley Expanded with millions of download).
Make sure you’re signed into Nexus and then download this. If you have your computer set so downloads go to the desktop then you should see it immediately, if not then drag it from the Downloads section of your computer onto your Desktop for easy access.
You’ll want to unzip the file so you can get to the folder for Stardew Expanded, then drag that entire folder into the Stardew Valley Mods folder, which against is under steamapps > common > Stardew Valley.
Step 6: Install the Other Mods Needed for SVE to Run Correctly
There are 9 additional mods that you need to download for Stardew Valley Expanded to work properly and those Stardew mods are:
- Content Patcher
- Custom NPC Exclusions
- Expanded Preconditions Utility
- Extra Map Layers
- Farm Type Manager (FTM)
- Json Assets
- SAAT – Audio API and Toolkit
- Shop Tile Framework
- SpaceCore
The listed mods link to where they are on NEXUS, you also always can go right to them to download them. Follow the exact same steps as you did for adding SMAPI or Stardew Valley and everything should go smoothly.
IMPORTANT: While it doesn’t matter which order these nine go in, it’s absolutely imperative that the SMAPI is uploaded first. This smooths the path for loading everything else up and increases you chances that SVE goes nice and smooth.
Once all of these are loaded you can play SVE by opening the folder or (OPTIONAL but RECCOMENDED) once you have all the mods downloaded take that “Pufferfish Chicken” that represents modded Stardew Valley and pull that out to your desktop. That means you can then double click that icon and it should open the modded version of Stardew Valley.
Install Stardew Valley Expanded Mod – Video Tutorial
Great video tutorial on how to do this from BitterSweet_Ruler, if you used her tutorial please make sure to like and subscribe to her channel and say hello.
If you’ve followed the instructions in this article or in this video, you should be all set to go!
Stardew Valley Expanded FAQ
Should I play Stardew Valley Expanded the first time I play?
I would say no, and I think most players agree. There are so many things to experience in the original game and there’s a reason very few players only play it once. Many players play many different farms over and over. There are so many ways to experience this game and you really should play the original first.
Once you’ve played the original you know the base mechanics, understand how to take on new areas or challenges, and are much better prepared to take on the expanded world of Stardew. The expanded mod also makes changes to some original characters, so you’ll tend to appreciate the changes more after playing the base game.
Why isn’t there an official installation guide for Stardew Valley expanded (SVE)?
There actually is, which can be found here. Some people just prefer picture guides or video guides, and it can sometimes be hard for someone who is an expert in an area to make an easy to understand guide for us newbies.
That’s maybe why there’s also a decent troubleshooting guide for Stardew Valley Expanded that can also be found by the author.
How much extra content does the SVE add to the game?
The expanded version of Stardew adds anywhere from 50-100 more hours of gameplay depending on if you stay with main quests, go for the completionist route, etc. This also changes as more is added over time, meaning the overall game just continues to grow.
Stardew Valley Expanded Is Now Installed!
With over 1,200 hours and counting in the original Stardew Valley, and only one run where I made it to Ginger Island after the huge 1.5 update, it’s safe to say that I’m a huge mega fan and don’t have a problem going back to a world whose secrets I know and feels like a second home.
That said, the expanded world of this modded Stardew Valley has me excited with the new characters, the new places to explore, and the massive expansion of a world that I once knew so well…but now is larger and teeming with more places to explore, bringing back that wonder once again. This is a fantastic mod and I’d sure there will be plenty of articles coming out about my adventures in the expanded Stardew Valley universe (SVE) in the near future.
I’m looking forward to hearing about yours, too!
Other Stardew Valley Articles You May Love:
- How to Find Pot of Asteria My Time at Portia
- Blacksmith Vs Prospector Stardew Valley
- How Does Rain Work in Stardew Valley?
- Stardew Valley Earthquake – What Is It?
- Stardew Valley Bridge Repair
Proud to embrace the locally created moniker of “Corrupt Overlord” from one of the all time great Lords of Waterdeep runs, Shane is one member of the Assorted Meeples crew and will be hard at work creating awesome content for the website. He is a long-time player of board games, one time semi-professional poker player, and tends to run to the quirky or RPG side of things when it comes to playing video games. He loves tabletop roleplaying systems like Dungeons & Dragons, Pathfinder, Werewolf, Fate, and others, and not only has been a player but has run games as DM for years. You can find his other work in publications like Level Skip or Hobby Lark.