We're all excited to see what Eric "ConcernedApe" Barone is cooking up with Haunted Chocolatier, the upcoming life sim where you run a chocolate shop with the help of ghosts, and ConcernedApe's second game after the mammoth hit of Stardew Valley.
But things are taking a little while, which is causing some fans to get a little concerned. But Barone has assured fans that he's "still working like always" in a new blog post (thanks, IGN).
Addressing those concerns directly, Barone says, "Yep, it’s taking a while to finish the game. That’s okay", but acknowledges that he may have gotten ahead of himself revealing the game when he did: "I know, I know, I shouldn’t have announced the game so early. But I had my reasons."
The rest of the blog post looks at some of the general chatter and "false assumptions" that have been going around fan communities over the years, all of which Barone dismisses.
One assumption that has been going around is that Haunted Chocolatier will be abandoned and instead will just be added onto Stardew Valley — a game that has been getting regular updates since its release in 2017, as recently as December 2025 with the Nintendo Switch 2 Edition.
"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" Barone writes, saying that wouldn't even make sense "from a technical perspective. "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."
Then, sticking with the Stardew angle, some have wondered whether the Stardew Valley updates are actually tests for Haunted Chocolatier. "Nope", says Barone. "When working on Stardew Valley, I’m not thinking about Haunted Chocolatier, and vice versa."
Again, he reiterates that Stardew Valley "is a different game" and that the content isn't compatible between the two. Not only that, Barone doesn't want to spoil many of his ideas in the upcoming game. Understandable!
So, why does Stardew keep getting updates? Is it because "he's burnt out on Haunted Chocolatier"? You can probably imagine the answer already; "No, I’m working on a new Stardew update because it’s a very popular game with a large, ever-growing playerbase, and I still have additional ideas for how to improve it."
The game doesn't have a release date yet, and Barone is sticking to that — while some have interpreted from comments that it's coming in 2030, Barone dismisses that. " I was asked in 2025 if it would come out within the next five years, and I said “I hope so”.
As he's stressed throughout the process, and this blog post, "The game will come out when it's done". So we'll just have to be patient.
And, honestly? We're happy to wait. Barone does share occasional updates on social media, and we're still amazed we're getting constant free content for Stardew Valley all these years later.
Of course, some regions are still waiting for the Switch 2 version after it initially launched with some pretty big bugs, but most of these are fixed at this point, with a handful of stragglers still to iron out. if you have a North American eShop account, you can still download the Switch 2 Edition for free (if you own the game on Switch 1). It's still fantastic.
When we spoke to Barone in late 2024, he spoke about what he wanted to do differently compared to Stardew: "Designing bosses is a whole new ball game from anything that's Stardew. And I think I wanted something different. I wanted a challenge because I want to keep growing as a game developer. I didn't want to just do exactly the same thing again."
Are you excited for Haunted Chocolatier? Do you have any concerns about the game? Temper in the comments and let us know.