Surviving the Pandemic with Stardew Valley
Cottagecore as antidote to pandemic anxiety, and obfuscation of the realities of capitalism
In April of 2020, having not even cracked open Infinite Jest or turned the sourdough starter I was gifted into bread, I asked Twitter for video game recommendations. Since I hadn’t yet adopted my cat, received my guitar or purchased my bike, I was in need of a hobby.
So I downloaded Stardew Valley.
The game starts with you wasting your life away in the corporate world of Joja, the Amazon of the in-game universe. Your grandfather bequeaths you his farm, and you escape urban alienation to the town of Stardew Valley. You start your farm, meet the residents of the town, and begin a quest to help the town, which seems to have fallen on some post-industrial hard times.
Stardew Valley offered not only an escape from the pandemic, but from the realities capitalism. The pleasure of sim games is that, while you’re playing at real life, it’s still not real life. The stakes in real life (ie, keeping a roof over your head, food in the fridge, and the lights on) don’t really exist in Stardew Valley. There is some gameplay that is more high stakes (monsters of various kinds exist in Stardew Valley), but it’s an open world, and you could spend all your gameplay finding a spouse, planting crops, and caring for your farm animals. Also, if you die, you just reappear in the town doctor’s office, down some money and with some items missing. No big deal.
When a new day starts in Stardew Valley, I feel a sense of peace and openness. The day really is yours. You can wander the village, complete a mission, pet your cow, forage for mushrooms — whatever. There’s no rush here. There are no deadlines. You can decide what you want to do and then do it.
One element that is so captivating is that Stardew Valley is not quite as idyllic as it first seems. The Joja Corporation dominates the local economy, which is otherwise populated by struggling small businesses. The community centre is in disrepair. Many characters are struggling with living in a town in decline with vanishing jobs. The young townspeople dream of escape. In year 2, you meet a returned soldier coping with PTSD. There are problems of addiction, family conflict, and economic disenfranchisement.
Still, with all that context, Stardew Valley is not a dark game. Most of your time is spent milking your cows, making jam, and fishing. You give gifts to NPCs (non-player characters) and attend local festivals. You stop in at the various shops, or the town saloon, and try to boost the local economy. Essentially, you experience what all urbanites dream small town life is like: a community where everyone knows you, where you can go to escape the way the city grinds you down.
But beyond this leisurely gameplay, there is a second narrative. You have the power to save the town. The quests you complete and money you accrue gets poured back into the community. You can bring back the broken bus, and buy Penny and Pam a better house.
This type of low stakes fun is exactly what I needed this past year and a half. No one dies. Even if you forget to give your animals hay, they won’t starve. All of the characters' problems can be solved through your hard work rebuilding the community centre and banishing Joja from the town.
At some point, you must power down the game (for me this is usually after an hour of play, since I’m afraid my laptop will overheat and explode at any moment), and return to real life responsibilities like sending emails and attending virtual meetings.
It’s all just a simulacrum of an unalienated life that isn’t really attainable. Small farms barely exist anymore, and corporations, like Stardew Valley’s villain Joja Corp, are trying to destroy them. The dream world of Stardew Valley is like the soft-focus nostalgia that makes people long for the simple life of the 50s. It ignores the harsh economic realities that not only make return impossible, but the inequality, racism, and labour abuses that lurk behind the pastoral images. These issues exist across industries, but they’re particularly rampant in the farming industry, where workers are paid poorly, working under harsh conditions, with Covid cases high among migrant farm workers in Canada.
In Stardew Valley, there is no alienation from labour, because you grow your own food, and sell it to the general store. There are no poorly paid undocumented workers harvesting your crops. The townspeople gift you items you need.
It’s not so much the absence of capitalism as it is an idealized capitalism, a town of artisans and tradespeople who support each other. No one competes, but everyone’s needs are met.
As the world gets back on its feet and economies return to their dismal status quo, with the rich richer than they began, and evictions and unemployment still affecting the lives of average people, Stardew Valley’s 8-bit cottagecore gameplay are a balm.
I’m left wondering what art will look like in the next five years. Will reflective work about mortality and isolation resonate more deeply? Or will the aesthetics of an idealized country life dominate our cultural imagination as the economic realities of life after covid set in?