Chucklefish and Concernedape have released some new details for the highly-anticipated multiplayer feature coming to Stardew Valley.

The new update, set to release sometime early next year for PC, Mac, and Linux – will let the main player act as the farm owner, while three friends can hop in and out whenever they like. The other three players will act as farmhands on the main player’s farm, and can live in their own cabins.

Going to sleep and participating in festivals are both triggered by the main player, however outside of that the farmhands are free to do whatever they want. These farmhands can even get married, with Chucklefish hoping to add the option of marrying one of your friends as well (they’re exploring ways to make it happen).

This is online co-op only, local split-screen and competitive or player-versus-player modes are not currently planned. You won’t need to run a player server, everything is hosted through Steam. The non-Steam release invite mechanism is TBD, but will probably behave the same way (i.e. via a client).

A beta for the update is planned for later this year, with a launch initially for the PC, Mac, and Linux versions. The Nintendo Switch version will get multiplayer first, followed by the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 versions. It’s also worth pointing out the Nintendo Switch version is still on track for a 2017 release.

Stardew Valley is currently available for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. In case you missed it, you can find my review for Stardew Valley here (I highly recommend it).