Stardew Valley's popularity has creator ConcernedApe feeling like he "could work on it for the rest of my life," even if he still wants to "make a new game" like Haunted Chocolatier

gamesradar.com:

With update 1.6 finally out the door for all players and 1.6.9 releasing on PC, Stardew Valley creator Eric "ConcernedApe" Barone has been considering the future - and he just can't seem to shake his farming sim from it, Haunted Chocolatier be damned.

ConcernedApe recently stated that Haunted Chocolatier will receive new updates "in time" as his focus still remains on Stardew Valley. Speaking in a new interview with Nintendo Life, the solo developer explains his attachment to the farming gem of almost a decade. "I have so many ideas for Stardew. I feel like I could work on it for the rest of my life and just keep improving it, adding more stuff to it, more content, fleshing out the existing content."

The creator continues, citing the game's massive community as a reason for his devotion to it and for regularly releasing updates. "I feel like I want to keep it alive, keep it fresh, delight the fans because it's just fun to engage with that. It's a rare opportunity I have that there are so many people who love this game and will play whatever update I make. And what I love to do is create things and then share them with people and give people experiences."

According to ConcernedApe, "Stardew is such a good platform for that because it is very popular and it's still really active. So it's kind of hard. I don't want to see it fizzle out; I want to keep it alive, but then I also want to make a new game." By new game, it's likely he's referring to Haunted Chocolatier - and he did recently say that he has "not touched Haunted Chocolatier in a long time" while working on Stardew Valley's 1.6+ updates.

ConcernedApe also previously admitted that he still thinks he could "keep working on the game forever" regarding Stardew Valley, which seems to line up with his current sentiment of feeling as though he "could work on it for the rest of my life." As a longtime fan of his farming sim, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't ecstatic to hear his own love for the game - but at the same