Stardew Valley added a whole new island to explore with update 1.5 on PC, and it's surprisingly fleshed-out. There's a lot to it! If you're looking for a straight-to-the-point starter guide, here goes nothing.
To reach the island, you'll need to complete the Community Center bundles (or the equivalent JojaMart questline), which means there's a ton of setup if you're starting a new save file for 1.5.
When you're done with your Community Center or Joja goal, Willy will mail you a letter saying he has unlocked the back room in the Fish Shop. Inside, you'll find a decades-old boat in need of repairs.
[Note: I'm not sure if there are any other requirements before Willy sends the letter, but I happened to have a save file with an almost-finished Community Center. Preparing the final bundles did the trick. On this particular file, I didn't catch every type of fish, so thankfully that's not a prerequisite for the boat.]
To fix the boat, you'll need to bring:
- Five iridium bars to fix the anchor.
- Five battery packs to fix the ticket machine.
- 200 pieces of hardwood to fix the hull.
It's a one-time expense, but if you aren't stocked up – I sure wasn't! – then the boat is quite a resource hog. I had to make a bunch of trips to the Secret Woods, though thankfully I had some battery reserves.
Once you repair Willy's boat, you'll be allowed into the Fish Shop at 8:00 a.m. every day and you can pay 1000g for a ticket to sail to the new zone much like how you can hitch a ride to the desert.
Before you take off with Willy, make sure you bring a watering can – you'll need it.
Your destination? Ginger Island. You'll see a cute little sailing cutscene.
Without revealing too much about the area – you can check out the gallery below for more spoiler-y screenshots – there are several noteworthy things to find, including an NPC and a volcano dungeon. I've only scratched the surface, but I love that there's a new story here. The blocked paths are intriguing.
The first time I tried exploring the dungeon, I didn't bring a watering can, so I couldn't get far. When I came back, I almost immediately got wiped out by some of the new creatures. Curse you, Eric!
