The 10 Best Stardew Valley Mods

What are the best Stardew Valley mods?

Stardew Valley has quickly become one of the most popular games in the world, and it is incredibly relaxing to play.

However, you don’t have to limit yourself to the vanilla game, as the Nexus hosts a ton of mods that allow you to really mix things up.

Today, we’re looking at some top-rated mods for Stardew Valley so you can easily find the ones that are worth downloading!

The 10 Best Stardew Valley Mods

To create this list, we went through a ton of different mods and tested them for ourselves to make sure they worked correctly.

The ones that made the list have been selected based on their popularity, how well they run, and the overall impact they have on the game.

So, if you’re ready for a new farming adventure, here’s our list of the 10 best Stardew Valley mods:

10. Perks of Being Married

Kicking off our list is a mod that gives you some good reasons to start looking for a partner in Stardew Valley!

In the vanilla version of the game, marriage is nice as your spouse will move in with you, occasionally help out, and give you gifts.

However, this mod actually provides tangible perks to marriage that makes it so much better and worth pursuing!

When this mod is installed, new perks will be gained that are unique to the NPC you choose to marry.

For example, marrying Penny will make artifacts twice as valuable, while marrying Leah will reduce requirements for wood, stone, and hardwood while crafting!

Best of all, this mod also works for some select custom NPCs that are added through other mods, like Shiko by Moopdrea and Mona by Zilsara.

While getting married was always a great milestone to achieve in Stardew Valley, this mod makes it so much more rewarding!

9. Skull Cavern Elevator

If you’re really into mining or looking for treasure, you’ve probably ventured to the Stardew Valley mine before and enjoyed its elevator.

The elevator there takes players to every fifth floor they’ve previously visited, but the same can’t be said for Calico Desert’s Skull Cavern.

When you venture out there, you will always have to start from the first floor, even if you previously visited the fifth floor or beyond.

This mod changes things by placing an elevator in Skull Cavern that functions like the one in the Stardew Valley mine.

Now, hunting for treasure or valuable resources here won’t feel so much like a tedious chore and more like a real adventure.

So, once you install this mod, you can load up our Earth Crystal Stardew Valley mining guide and head out to explore these caverns in earnest!

Skull Cavern is already a pretty painful place to delve into, and this mod makes it just a little bit more enjoyable to visit overall.

8. Fast Animations

Okay, so Stardew Valley is easily one of the most relaxing games to play, but sometimes it can get a bit frustrating when certain animations seem to take forever!

This mod speeds up a ton of actions so that they don’t take you all day to complete, and we seriously can’t play without it anymore.

Some of the actions it covers include harvesting crops, breaking geodes, eating, shearing, milking, and taking the bus.

It also covers fishing, swinging tools, swinging weapons, and felling trees, though they are disabled as a default, so you have to choose to turn them on.

This mod saves us so much time, it’s not even funny, and it definitely makes today-to-day activities so much easier.

While some players may not like this mod because it may feel a bit too much like a cheat, we definitely feel it’s worth trying before you knock it!

7. Gift Taste Helper

Getting gifts for people in Stardew Valley is no easy task, and it can be incredibly tricky to find exactly what specific NPCs love.

While you could check out our tips, like the Gus Stardew Valley gift guide, or keep the Wiki open, this mod definitely makes things a bit simpler!

With the Gift Taste Helper mod, all you have to do is hover over a character’s social page entry to see all of their favorite gifts.

If you’re trying to make friends with someone or romance them, this can definitely help speed things up!

There is also a progression mode that makes things a little more challenging if you feel like seeing NPCs’ favorites right off the bat makes things too easy.

In progression mode, a character’s favorite gifts will only show up if you have given them previously, causing them to be unlocked on the menu.

We absolutely love this mod, as it lets us know what gifts our favorite characters like without having to remember everything.

It even fits seamlessly into the game and is definitely worth trying out if you, like us, have trouble remembering everyone’s favorite things!

6. Bigger Backpack

At the beginning of the vanilla game, every player starts off with 12 inventory slots, which can be upgraded to a total of 36.

However, if you’re spending a day mining or scavenging for shells, this space can run out fast, leaving you with no choice but to head home.

Fortunately, the Bigger Backpack mod makes it much easier to carry around everything you need by providing you with 48 extra inventory slots!

Once installed, this backpack can be purchased from Pierre’s for 50,000g, though you can lower the amount if you want.

What we really love about this mod is that it allows players to configure it to suit their needs, and you can even lower the default cost of the backpack.

This mod also allows you to set the number of inventory slots it will provide, and you can choose from 12, 24, 36, and the default 48.

If you’re a bit of a hoarder while playing any of the best RPG Nintendo Switch games, you definitely won’t want to pass up on this mod!

5. Tractor Mod

Something that’s always bothered us when playing Stardew Valley was that there is a severe lack of modern farming equipment.

Sure, clearing land for crops can be done by hand, but it would sure save a lot of time if we could only access a tractor!

Thankfully, modder Pathoschild felt the same way and created the Tractor mod, which makes working with crops and clearing land so much easier.

When this mod is installed, you can buy the tractor garage from Robin, and once she’s done building it, you can hop on and choose what you want to do.

The tools that are enabled by default include an axe, fertilizer, grass starters, hoe, scythe, seeds, sheers, and watering can.

This means you can clear twigs, weeds, and dead crops easily while also planting new seeds or harvesting what’s finished growing.

There are also features that are disabled by default, which you can choose to enable if you want, and they are pretty powerful.

We also love that you can literally just ride your tractor around the town and show it off to all your new neighbors, basically flaunting what you’ve got!

4. Stardew Valley Expanded Mod

Stardew Valley is a huge title that changed the gaming industry forever, but the modding community has managed to make it even better.

The Stardew Valley Expanded mod has been downloaded over 7 million times, making it one of the most popular mods on the Nexus.

What this mod does is expand the world of Stardew Valley by adding 27 new NPCs, 50 new locations, 260 new character events, and completely redesigned vanilla areas.

If that wasn’t enough, the world map has been completely reimagined, and new questlines, objects, crops, and festivals have also been added.

Needless to say, this mod is absolutely huge, but despite all of its changes, it stays very close to the source material.

The main goal of this mod is to make players feel like they did when playing the vanilla game for the first time, and it does a very good job.

We’ve spent hours enjoying this mod and trying to find all of the things it’s changed or added, but we still feel like we’ve only scratched the surface.

Oh, and the NPCs added by this mod are also covered by the Perks of Being Married mod, so if you fall in love with someone new, you can still get great benefits!

Before you move on to one of the best games like Stardew Valley, once you feel like you’ve done all you can do, it’s worth checking out this mod.

Especially since it adds so much new content that easily provides hours upon hours of extra gameplay!

3. Lookup Anything

If you have questions about something while playing Stardew Valley, chances are you’ll probably pause the game and head to the Wiki to look it up.

Unfortunately, this can take a while, and it takes you completely out of the game, which totally lowers immersion!

Thankfully, Pathoschild, the creator of the Tractor mod and the Fast Animations mod, has taken it upon themselves to make things a lot easier.

When this mod is installed, you can now see real-time information about whatever you’re hovering your cursor over when you hit F1.

This allows you to easily learn a ton of information, such as when a crop will be ready to harvest, how long your fence will last, or what a villager’s favorite gifts are.

Moreover, it can also tell you things about your farm animals, including their happiness and what’s making them unhappy, if anything.

For example, if you haven’t pet one of your cows, this mod may list that as one of your cow’s “complaints” when you prompt for information.

If that wasn’t enough, because this is one of the best games like Farming Simulator, it can even tell you a ton of things about your crops.

When clicking on a crop, this mod will tell you what it’s needed for, what it sells for, who likes it, and what recipes you can use it in.

Seriously, this mod is amazing, and it will save you so much time searching for things on the Wiki so you can focus on having fun in the game!

2. Automate

Like one of the best mods for Minecraft, this mod makes it easier to automate certain actions in Stardew Valley.

With the Automate mod, all you have to do is place a chest next to a machine, such as a crystalarium or a furnace, and it will automatically produce processed items.

What’s really great about this mod is that you can basically put a single chest next to a load of machines, and it will get to work.

Essentially, what it does is take the raw items from the chest and then put the finished items back into it without you having to do anything.

This mod also supports a ton of machines, including cheese presses, bee houses, bone mills, hay hoppers, and coffee makers.

Best of all, this Automate mod gives you the same amount of XP you would have gotten otherwise, so that you won’t miss out on anything.

If you want to be able to run the most efficient farm possible, you really can’t afford to pass on this amazing mod!

1. NPC Map Locations

Taking our number one spot is NPC Map Locations because sometimes finding the NPC you’re looking for is the hardest part of Stardew Valley!

Seriously, how many times have you been looking for a specific NPC only to end up having to search the whole town because they’re not in their usual spot?

With this mod, you can easily see where everyone is on your map in real-time, and it even tracks NPCs as they move around.

You can also hover over a character’s icon to see more about where they are specifically and where they’re headed.

What makes this mod even better is that the entire map has even been redrawn to be more accurate, so it’s even easier to get around.

There is also an optional minimap that you can enable and different settings that allow you to either show all villagers, villagers you’ve talked to, or those you haven’t.

This mod has quickly become one that we can’t play without, and we highly recommend trying it out for yourself!

Summary

We hope you’ve enjoyed our list of the 10 best Stardew Valley mods and found some you might not have tried out yet!

Stardew Valley is an amazing game on its own, but when you play through it once, it’s nice to be able to change things up.

NPC Map Locations and the Stardew Valley Expanded mods, in particular, are two of our favorites, and we definitely recommend checking them out!

Here’s a quick recap of the 10 best Stardew Valley mods:

1. NPC Map Locations
2. Automate
3. Lookup Anything
4. Stardew Valley Expanded Mod
5. Tractor Mod
6. Bigger Backpack
7. Gift Taste Helper
8. Fast Animations
9. Skull Cavern Elevator
10. Perks of Being Married

Did we miss any great Stardew Valley mods? Leave a comment below.