In a post on the Stardew Valley website, the developers have confirmed that the multiplayer feature of the game is expected to enter into beta by the end of 2017, before being released in full in early 2018. “We currently expect to be able to start a beta test at the end of the year for Steam users to help us test the game. Mod authors will be encouraged to update their mods during this beta period. Then, in early 2018 we will release it as the 1.3 patch on Windows, Mac and Linux.”
The developers also confirmed that the feature will be released for consoles starting with the Nintendo Switch. We are not sure if there will be cross-platform support, like what the folks at Microsoft and Mojang are doing for Minecraft, so we guess we’ll have to wait and see and cross our fingers and hope that is the case. This still means that there will be quite a bit of waiting left to be done, so gamers will just have to remain patient until then.