Responding to reports that the game will be abandoned entirely and possibly folded into Stardew Valley, Barone shut that down completely, writing: "No. Stardew Valley and Haunted Chocolatier are separate games. It doesn’t even make sense from a technical perspective, as Haunted Chocolatier is written from scratch, it’s not the same 'engine' as Stardew Valley. I wouldn’t 'test something out' in Stardew Valley because that would be unfair to Stardew Valley, and also I don’t want to spoil ideas for Haunted Chocolatier by adding them first to Stardew Valley. As for why Barone's working on a Stardew Valley update at the same time as Haunted Chocolatier?