Why Potatoes Are Essential for Vintage Story — And Why Their Historical Importance Shouldn’t Be Overlooked

[Racifor]

It’s easy for game developers to think of potatoes as just another crop, something small and unexciting. But potatoes aren’t just food—they’re one of the most culturally and historically significant survival staples humanity has ever relied on. And that’s exactly why Vintage Story needs them.

Vintage Story is a game built on the struggle for survival, the pressure of the seasons, and the joy of building stability from nothing. And if there’s one crop in world history that embodies all of that, it’s the potato.

Potatoes transformed entire civilizations. They fed populations through brutal climates and long winters. They were so nutrient-dense and easy to grow that they literally fueled population booms. In places where wheat failed, where soil was poor, where winters dragged on—potatoes still grew. They became the backbone food of farmers, settlers, explorers, and entire empires. In other words, potatoes are the definition of a survival crop.

In the context of Vintage Story, this makes them practically perfect:

• High Yield: Potatoes have always been known for producing a lot of food from a small plot of land. For a player scraping by in early game, that’s huge.

• Hardy and Resilient: Poor soils, colder biomes, unpredictable weather—potatoes historically thrived in all of it. Their presence would make harsher regions more playable without breaking difficulty.

• Excellent Storage: Potatoes store incredibly well through winter, fitting perfectly into Vintage Story’s seasonal hunger cycle. They’d give players a realistic, historically accurate option for overwintering food security.

• Cultural Accuracy: Any game leaning on old-world, pre-industrial survival realism should absolutely acknowledge potatoes’ historical impact. They weren’t optional; they were world-changing.

And that’s exactly why their absence in Vintage Story feels so strange. The game features detailed farming, climate simulation, nutrient balancing, cooking progression—potatoes would tie all these systems together in a natural, intuitive way. It’s not about adding “just another crop.” It’s about adding a crop that historically reshaped how humans survived, migrated, and built societies.

Players trying to endure long winters, push into harsher territories, or set up self-sufficient homesteads would immediately feel the difference. Potatoes make survival more strategic, more realistic, and more rewarding.

Honestly, when you look at how crucial potatoes were in real history—and how perfectly they align with Vintage Story’s survival philosophy—it becomes clear:

Vintage Story should fr add potatoes. It’s not just a want at this point; it’s a historical and gameplay necessity.

[LadyWYT]

Welcome to the forums!

55 minutes ago, Racifor said:

Cultural Accuracy: Any game leaning on old-world, pre-industrial survival realism should absolutely acknowledge potatoes’ historical impact. They weren’t optional; they were world-changing.

Do keep in mind that any game leaning into a medieval European setting shouldn't have potatoes, since those are a New World crop. Potatoes weren't introduced to Europe until the 1500s, but the setting of VS is somewhere between 1200-1400, since we know that both the Hanseatic League and the Byzantine Empire existed at the same time when certain story events take place.

 

58 minutes ago, Racifor said:

Vintage Story should fr add potatoes. It’s not just a want at this point; it’s a historical and gameplay necessity.

That being said, I don't disagree that potatoes should be added though, and it's something I would expect to be added later on after more critical gameplay systems have been fleshed out(fishing, late game tech, herbalism, etc). While anachronistic, there are other things that didn't exist in medieval Europe, that the player can still encounter in the game(like raccoons). 

[Broccoli Clock]

I want potatoes in game purely because of the cottage core nature of them, I also think they suit the way you harvest lots of items; I shouldn't expect large quantities of turnips just from harvesting one block, but with potatoes you would. 

The anachronistic argument is fair, but only if you were to stay in the traditional temperate spawn point which, as @LadyWYT says, leans into a Middle Ages (Dark Age?) medieval European vibe. As we generate a whole world, then you could argue that travelling to far flung areas would provide access to those crops.

Also, peanuts are in the game, and they took a similar route as potatoes in ending up on European menus.

In short, I'd like them for the vibe, and the cottage core look.

[MKMoose]

1 hour ago, Racifor said:

• High Yield: Potatoes have always been known for producing a lot of food from a small plot of land. For a player scraping by in early game, that’s huge.

• Hardy and Resilient: Poor soils, colder biomes, unpredictable weather—potatoes historically thrived in all of it. Their presence would make harsher regions more playable without breaking difficulty.

• Excellent Storage: Potatoes store incredibly well through winter, fitting perfectly into Vintage Story’s seasonal hunger cycle. They’d give players a realistic, historically accurate option for overwintering food security.

One thing that I don't really see is how the potato could be implemented in a way which accurately reflects its historical benefits and yet avoids making it the single best food crop in the game, at least in temperate and cold climates.

It's already really quite easy to set up a small farm that produces all the food a player might need, and food preservation is rarely a problem (and if it is, subsistence on hunting is absolutely possible). Many crops are functionally the same except for different temperature ranges which make them slightly more optimal in different climates. Without a larger farming rework, there is no way to implement the potato in a way that is actually distinct from other crops and still maintains proper gameplay balance, and so it would most likely simply end up as "just another crop", in spite of best intents.

One thing that could help would be adjustments to the nutrition system to create an additional axis of balance, to make a distinction between foods that satiate and provide a lot of energy through the main macronutrients (e.g. meat and other proteins), and foods that aren't very caloric but provide a lot of micronutrients (e.g. fruits, mushrooms). The potato could be a satiating but not nutrient-rich crop, making it a strong choice for subsistence but much less suitable for maintaining proper nutrition.

 

22 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

Do keep in mind that any game leaning into a medieval European setting shouldn't have potatoes, since those are a New World crop. Potatoes weren't introduced to Europe until the 1500s, but the setting of VS is somewhere between 1200-1400, since we know that both the Hanseatic League and the Byzantine Empire existed at the same time when certain story events take place.

The game already includes a bunch of stuff from outside of medieval Europe like redwoods and bald cypress (much of which you're probably well aware of), and want to mention that I recall Tyron saying that they were considering splitting the game world into distinct regions that would each contain flora and fauna from one continent (or in a similar way from geographically distinct regions of the world, not necessarily split by continent). If they do move ahead with that, then the potato would gain a lot more importance.

[LadyWYT]

3 hours ago, MKMoose said:

The game already includes a bunch of stuff from outside of medieval Europe like redwoods and bald cypress (much of which you're probably well aware of)

Which is exactly why I used the phrasing I did. 

[ArgentLuna]

6 hours ago, Racifor said:

it becomes clear:

That its not actually needed because of whole raft of things. Maybe they will add them maybe they wont, the game doeant "need them", YOU want them that's all.

[Facethief]

1 hour ago, ArgentLuna said:

That its not actually needed because of whole raft of things. Maybe they will add them maybe they wont, the game doeant "need them", YOU want them that's all.

I would give this a wolf bait, but that’d give you points.

[Vexxvididu]

8 hours ago, Racifor said:

It’s easy for game developers to think of potatoes as just another crop, something small and unexciting. But potatoes aren’t just food—they’re one of the most culturally and historically significant survival staples humanity has ever relied on. And that’s exactly why Vintage Story needs them.

Vintage Story is a game built on the struggle for survival, the pressure of the seasons, and the joy of building stability from nothing. And if there’s one crop in world history that embodies all of that, it’s the potato.

Potatoes transformed entire civilizations. They fed populations through brutal climates and long winters. They were so nutrient-dense and easy to grow that they literally fueled population booms. In places where wheat failed, where soil was poor, where winters dragged on—potatoes still grew. They became the backbone food of farmers, settlers, explorers, and entire empires. In other words, potatoes are the definition of a survival crop.

In the context of Vintage Story, this makes them practically perfect:

• High Yield: Potatoes have always been known for producing a lot of food from a small plot of land. For a player scraping by in early game, that’s huge.

• Hardy and Resilient: Poor soils, colder biomes, unpredictable weather—potatoes historically thrived in all of it. Their presence would make harsher regions more playable without breaking difficulty.

• Excellent Storage: Potatoes store incredibly well through winter, fitting perfectly into Vintage Story’s seasonal hunger cycle. They’d give players a realistic, historically accurate option for overwintering food security.

• Cultural Accuracy: Any game leaning on old-world, pre-industrial survival realism should absolutely acknowledge potatoes’ historical impact. They weren’t optional; they were world-changing.

And that’s exactly why their absence in Vintage Story feels so strange. The game features detailed farming, climate simulation, nutrient balancing, cooking progression—potatoes would tie all these systems together in a natural, intuitive way. It’s not about adding “just another crop.” It’s about adding a crop that historically reshaped how humans survived, migrated, and built societies.

Players trying to endure long winters, push into harsher territories, or set up self-sufficient homesteads would immediately feel the difference. Potatoes make survival more strategic, more realistic, and more rewarding.

Honestly, when you look at how crucial potatoes were in real history—and how perfectly they align with Vintage Story’s survival philosophy—it becomes clear:

Vintage Story should fr add potatoes. It’s not just a want at this point; it’s a historical and gameplay necessity.

I am supportive of adding potatoes just because I subjectively love them, but your argument is REALLY exaggerated.  As others pointed out, they historically were NOT present in Medieval Europe.  And the game is supposed to be hard, so pointing out how good they are isn't a very convincing argument.

[GothIhopWaitress]

On 12/7/2025 at 11:33 AM, MKMoose said:

One thing that I don't really see is how the potato could be implemented in a way which accurately reflects its historical benefits and yet avoids making it the single best food crop in the game, at least in temperate and cold climates.

I agree that they would need to be balanced in some way. Potatoes could be added as 1.) True potato seeds, as in from the potato berries. Yielding wildly varying results and giving different types of potatoes such as;  An inedible "small weird potato", a "medium" potato on par with mushrooms and other crops, and then a heartier potato offering more satiation.

and

2.) "Seed" potatoes as in just planting the potatoes themselves guaranteeing you get the same potato you planted.

This would mean that to keep getting the potatoes you wanted you would need to keep some potatoes from rotting during winter.

This allows a "challenge" for people not playing with story elements in their game, while also allowing heartier potatoes to become a trade item from agricultural traders or a possible story element/Reward Similar to the elk.

[LadyWYT]

Really, if implemented, I would expect potatoes to behave like the other vegetables we already have, at least in terms of shelf life and nutrition. Which means that they're still going to get outclassed by turnips, since turnips have the fastest growth times. But that's if you're going purely by numbers for efficiency. 

I don't think potatoes really need to do anything special though, as just having them present for variety is enough. Most players enjoy having a variety, and don't play purely by the numbers.

[Slam]

Now I’m no gardener, I don’t know if any of the grow times in vintage story is realistic.

I feel like they’d just be another alternatives to parsnips, long grow time, low nutrition, consumption. I feel like if we wanted to be unique, it’s growth speed would be less affected by soil fertility, like in rimworld, though how useful it would be, considering you could just plant something else 9/10 times, and medium fertility soil being common enough, and also would be worse in higher fertility soils due to being less sensitive.

4 hours ago, GothIhopWaitress said:

Seed" potatoes as in just planting the potatoes themselves guaranteeing you get the same potato you planted.

Potato seeds are interesting though, forcing preservation of some to grow some next year, but considering how easy it is to store vegetables until after winter, it also doesn’t change much.

12 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

Really, if implemented, I would expect potatoes to behave like the other vegetables we already have, at least in terms of shelf life and nutrition. Which means that they're still going to get outclassed by turnips, since turnips have the fastest growth times. But that's if you're going purely by numbers for efficiency. 

I think WYT makes the most since, I only see it being added as basicilly parsnip, but with even higher cold resistance (allowing for a crop that can survive winter), slightly weaker heat resistance, and different rarer fertilizer, like 15 k, though this would go against it not needing fertile soil, unlike parsnips, which can just use 20 p.

[LadyWYT]

14 minutes ago, Slam said:

Now I’m no gardener, I don’t know if any of the grow times in vintage story is realistic.

I'm not a gardener either, but I do have a little experience with it. I would say...kind of. Vegetables like turnips do grow pretty fast, but overall I think the current crop growth times are balanced more for gameplay than pure realism.

[Slam]

7 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

Vegetables like turnips do grow pretty fast, but overall I think the current crop growth times are balanced more for gameplay than pure realism

Yeah, I agree, turnips are limited due to its insane nitrogen useage. Haven’t got time to compare other things such as harvest yield to other nitrogen consuming crops.

[Teh Pizza Lady]

I want potatoes just because you can use them to make moonshine as an alternative to aqua vitae for getting absolutely smashed before the next temporal storm.

Edited December 11, 2025 by Teh Pizza Lady

[DukeLeto42]

I oppose this for 3 reasons, presented in no particular order:

1. Pseudo-medieval-Europe setting. Yeah, yeah, I know it isn't an ironclad rationale given the non-European things already in-game, but still.
2. I hate potatoes. Yes, it runs in the family, no, we don't know why, and yes, it sucks - do you have any idea how many foods people just shove potatoes into because everyone else finds them innocuous?
3. I really, truly, deeply don't want ChatGPT deciding what goes in Vintage Story. I lied, this one's last because it's the most important (and it also explains the "sorta right but also doesn't engage with the potato's actual history in any meaningful way" vibe the whole post gives).

[Heart_Afire]

I will also throw my vote in favor of the humble potato, both for reasons some others have outlined above but also because

On 12/7/2025 at 10:33 AM, MKMoose said:

make a distinction between foods that satiate and provide a lot of energy through the main macronutrients (e.g. meat and other proteins), and foods that aren't very caloric but provide a lot of micronutrients (e.g. fruits, mushrooms)

This is an excellent idea. And adding potatoes, as suggested, as a "Low Nutrient but High Satiation" food would make for a more involved setup.

[MattyK]

On 12/11/2025 at 4:29 PM, LadyWYT said:

I'm not a gardener either, but I do have a little experience with it. I would say...kind of. Vegetables like turnips do grow pretty fast, but overall I think the current crop growth times are balanced more for gameplay than pure realism.

Wasn't Tyron quoted somewhere saying he wanted to make farming in general take longer and therefore be more impactful... Something like 'we want to increase times so you can only get two to three harvests a year'?

IMO, I think Potatoes desiring low fertility soil but also perhaps only being harvestable once a year could have an interesting twist to it. Plant in spring and harvest in winter as a sort of backup foodstock crop. They could be used as a fallowing crop too, increasing P-levels for the next spring, but that would also defeat the whole 'low fertility soil desired' element mentioned above.

The other thing we haven't really seen is crop blight. We see overheat and too cold effects, but having a blight and crops resistant to it could incentivize players to further diversify their farming, and push them into a hunting subsidence mode once in a while when a crop goes bad and you only get say 10% of the total yield that harvest.

[Broccoli Clock]

On 12/11/2025 at 3:52 PM, LadyWYT said:

Really, if implemented, I would expect potatoes to behave like the other vegetables we already have, at least in terms of shelf life and nutrition. Which means that they're still going to get outclassed by turnips, since turnips have the fastest growth times. But that's if you're going purely by numbers for efficiency. 

I mean the obvious solution would be to make the potatoes drop the rates the turnips do, that reflects real life, while reducing the turnip drop, again reflecting real life.

On 12/11/2025 at 3:52 PM, LadyWYT said:

I don't think potatoes really need to do anything special though, as just having them present for variety is enough. Most players enjoy having a variety, and don't play purely by the numbers.

This. I completely agree. For most it would be just another crop for the cottage core vibe, and I am all here for that. I think the game does well with the variants of flora and fauna, but I do feel it could be expanded quite a bit (yes, there are mods, but just in terms of vanilla). It's work, of course, and what level of a priority it is over other things, I just don't know.

Edited December 13, 2025 by Broccoli Clock

[Broccoli Clock]

28 minutes ago, MattyK said:

IMO, I think Potatoes desiring low fertility soil but also perhaps only being harvestable once a year could have an interesting twist to it. Plant in spring and harvest in winter as a sort of backup foodstock crop. They could be used as a fallowing crop too, increasing P-levels for the next spring, but that would also defeat the whole 'low fertility soil desired' element mentioned above.

This is a really interesting suggestion, as potatoes can improve soil quality in real life. If I found a patch of waste ground that had been left fallow but had no natural fertiliser being added over time, I'd throw down a season of potatoes. It's not a panacea, and like all crops repeated planting in the same place will cause problems.

The idea that you could change the quality of soil based on the crop is in the game already, it's just that it only works on a negative scale rather than a positive one. 

[LadyWYT]

1 hour ago, MattyK said:

Wasn't Tyron quoted somewhere saying he wanted to make farming in general take longer and therefore be more impactful... Something like 'we want to increase times so you can only get two to three harvests a year'?

Maybe? I don't recall it if he did. However, I wouldn't be against increasing crop growth times a bit either in order to have only one or two harvests per year. I wouldn't want to babysit the farm constantly to ensure the crops survive, but making the growth cycles take a bit longer feels pretty fair to me. It gives the player more incentive to invest in better farmland, or build more than just a tiny vegetable patch out back of the cabin.

 

1 hour ago, MattyK said:

IMO, I think Potatoes desiring low fertility soil but also perhaps only being harvestable once a year could have an interesting twist to it. Plant in spring and harvest in winter as a sort of backup foodstock crop. They could be used as a fallowing crop too, increasing P-levels for the next spring, but that would also defeat the whole 'low fertility soil desired' element mentioned above.

I like this, though increasing the P nutrient is...lackluster, really. Most players tend to care about the K nutrient, since that's what flax relies on. The others...eh...not really a big deal.

 

1 hour ago, MattyK said:

The other thing we haven't really seen is crop blight. We see overheat and too cold effects, but having a blight and crops resistant to it could incentivize players to further diversify their farming, and push them into a hunting subsidence mode once in a while when a crop goes bad and you only get say 10% of the total yield that harvest.

I don't know that I agree with this one. Crops do fail in real life and it can't be helped sometimes, but from a gameplay perspective I don't think it's going to be fun if the player plants crops and then has them all die off because "blight". However, if it's a risk that occurs from planting the same crops too many times in the same areas, that seems a bit more fair. In that case, the player could probably plant multiple plantings of flax or turnips or whatever on good soil, and still get a few good yields with the help of fertilizer as well. After doing that for a few plantings though, then the crops could start failing unless they're rotated, since disease/pests for that crop type have been able to establish themselves. 

[MattyK]

53 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

I don't know that I agree with this one. Crops do fail in real life and it can't be helped sometimes, but from a gameplay perspective I don't think it's going to be fun if the player plants crops and then has them all die off because "blight". However, if it's a risk that occurs from planting the same crops too many times in the same areas, that seems a bit more fair. In that case, the player could probably plant multiple plantings of flax or turnips or whatever on good soil, and still get a few good yields with the help of fertilizer as well. After doing that for a few plantings though, then the crops could start failing unless they're rotated, since disease/pests for that crop type have been able to establish themselves. 

Perhaps then like you say; to disincentivize repeatedly planting the same crop on the same patch of land while using fertilizer to make up for the nutrient shortfall, not allowing fields to fallow properly.

[MKMoose]

28 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

2 hours ago, MattyK said:

IMO, I think Potatoes desiring low fertility soil but also perhaps only being harvestable once a year could have an interesting twist to it. Plant in spring and harvest in winter as a sort of backup foodstock crop. They could be used as a fallowing crop too, increasing P-levels for the next spring, but that would also defeat the whole 'low fertility soil desired' element mentioned above.

I like this, though increasing the P nutrient is...lackluster, really. Most players tend to care about the K nutrient, since that's what flax relies on. The others...eh...not really a big deal.

I'm not sure if desiring low fertility soil really makes sense, though it could be very reasonable to reduce growth speed penalties applied to potatoes due to low nutrient levels, making them comparatively better on lower fertility soil than other plants. Probably makes sense to do the same for some other crops as well.

I think increasing P levels could work really well if natural nutrient replenishment were much slower, and several other crops were balanced with an increase to at least one nutrient as well (either directly, or through incorporating plant remains into the soil through tilling as I described in another farming suggestion). Rotating crops would become much more important and fertilizers more worthwhile, because as things stand currently you could as well leave the farmland fallow for two weeks and it's gonna be good as new afterwards. If possible from a realistic perspective, could balance it so that the best crop sources of K consume a lot of P, giving the potato a nice niche as the P replenisher.

 

1 hour ago, LadyWYT said:

However, if it's a risk that occurs from planting the same crops too many times in the same areas, that seems a bit more fair. In that case, the player could probably plant multiple plantings of flax or turnips or whatever on good soil, and still get a few good yields with the help of fertilizer as well. After doing that for a few plantings though, then the crops could start failing unless they're rotated, since disease/pests for that crop type have been able to establish themselves. 

This is somehow the single best idea I've ever seen for crop disease, and it's not even close. So many people just suggest random blights and that's it, whereas this actually solves a design issue and gives the player an actual problem and solution, not just a random "I guess we have no crops now". One thing I'm not sure is whether a feature primarily aimed to impede hyperoptimizing can really justify the effort required to implement it, especially since nutrient mechanics achieve a lot of very similar goals already and could be expanded more easily.

[LadyWYT]

1 hour ago, MKMoose said:

This is somehow the single best idea I've ever seen for crop disease, and it's not even close

Considering I'm generally against mechanics like blight and weeds, that's saying quite a lot. However, the idea isn't really mine either. @MattyK suggested it first here, and the most I did was just tweak the concept a bit while mulling it over.

 

1 hour ago, MKMoose said:

One thing I'm not sure is whether a feature primarily aimed to impede hyperoptimizing can really justify the effort required to implement it, especially since nutrient mechanics achieve a lot of very similar goals already and could be expanded more easily.

I don't it really stops hyperoptimizing, as much as it just does shifts the meta on that to something else. I think the more accurate way to describe it is that it's a system that allows the player to hyperfocus on a specific crop(like flax or turnips) for a short time(a couple of plantings or so), but can't be relied on long term as it quickly leads to diminishing returns.

Of course, the player could probably get around the mechanic by just making new farms or replacing the dirt. However, I'm not sure that's really a problem, as both of those options require a fair amount of time and effort invested. New farms take up space that could be used for other things, and nearby dirt sources eventually run out. I think it's also worth noting that while both options are technically viable for beating the game now, the "game" to beat is only two chapters thus far. It's quite easy to beat them within an in-game year or two. Once more story content is added, as well as other gameplay content in general, I expect the average game world to last a few in-game years instead of just one or two, which makes cheap tactics like replacing dirt less viable.

[MKMoose]

20 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

Considering I'm generally against mechanics like blight and weeds, that's saying quite a lot. However, the idea isn't really mine either. @MattyK suggested it first here, and the most I did was just tweak the concept a bit while mulling it over.

If I get it correctly then @MattyK's idea was focusing more on that if different crops can be killed by different diseases and have different resistance to them, then that would incentivize having multiple crops that are all vulnerable to different diseases so that a single blight can't kill all of them. Resistance to disease would also be a good balancing factor, which would allow creating low-risk low-yield crops and high-risk high-yield crops. Which, don't get me wrong, is a very good variation on the generic crop disease idea in itself, and one that I would be perfectly fine to see added to the game.

What I was reacting to was more your idea (assuming that part's actually yours) of making crops more vulnerable to diseases if planted repeatedly in the same area. This is also quite realistic, as crop rotation is a basic but sometimes effective way to prevent pests and diseases from fully establishing.

 

33 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

I don't it really stops hyperoptimizing, as much as it just does shifts the meta on that to something else. I think the more accurate way to describe it is that it's a system that allows the player to hyperfocus on a specific crop(like flax or turnips) for a short time(a couple of plantings or so), but can't be relied on long term as it quickly leads to diminishing returns.

Fair. My thought was that most players probably don't optimize so much as to plant the same crop multiple times in a row using fertilizers. If they need a lot of a specific crop (presumably flax) then they can also just expand the farm, so fertilizers are only really necessary when attempting to maximize growth rate to the extreme (potentially due to a limited supply of seeds). Unless you make blights kick in relatively quickly, then they may end up being so rare as to be irrelevant once even very basic crop rotation is used. Either way, it would ideally shift the meta to a much more interesting strategy.

[MattyK]

On 12/13/2025 at 8:48 PM, MKMoose said:

If I get it correctly then @MattyK's idea was focusing more on that if different crops can be killed by different diseases and have different resistance to them, then that would incentivize having multiple crops that are all vulnerable to different diseases so that a single blight can't kill all of them.

I just wanna see more reason for people to actually rotate crops and leave fields fallow instead of just spamming fertilizers at the same plot of land for the umpteenth flax harvest. My ideas are open to tweaking and different interpretations.