Valheim, developed by Iron Gate and published by Coffee Stain, exceeded expectations from the moment it became available in Early Access on Steam, selling 3 million copies in its first two weeks and breaking Steam’s record for concurrent online players.
The title brings the survival genre to a sandbox with mining, hunting, building, exploration, resource gathering and all the elements so well known in the genre, whose main exponent is the immortal Minecraft. Several other titles still try today to bring their own identity in an attempt to finally create the spiritual successor to the block game, but Valheim seems to have managed to captivate an audience that is very eager for its next updates.
Presentation
The game introduces the player to the Norse mythology theme from the first moments, guided through a light and entirely optional tutorial (if ignoring the raven following you instead of interacting with it does not bother you) with succinct tips, occasionally explained in a sentence or two or in riddles, scattered across written runes that can be found in the four corners of the world, which is generated randomly or according to what the genre calls a Seed.
After the opening cutscene, the player is thrown into the wild and it is up to you alone to get resources, food and craft what is needed to survive in the vast (really!) generated world. The ultimate goal, so far, is to defeat the five great bosses of the Norse purgatory and reach Asgard.
Gameplay
Valheim is quite familiar to anyone who has ventured through other titles in the genre and, even for those who have put only a few hours into games like this, it is not hard to adapt to the controls. However, it is worth noting that Valheim has a series of combined systems that need the player’s attention in order to maintain peak performance while exploring this world.
Among the most complex systems is the Stamina system, which limits everything the character does: running, jumping, attacking, swimming, dodging, shooting arrows or any other action in the game. The point of the system is that it can be expanded based on how well fed the character is and on the combination of foods used for that, so being well prepared with supplies is essential for any activity.
Another important system is how the character improves: everything you do contributes experience to that specific skill, which can change the efficiency of that skill as well as reduce the amount of Stamina needed to use it. An example: the more the character jumps, the higher the jump becomes as levels go by and the less Stamina it consumes.
Physics is another very important and heavily explored point, bringing the player a series of dangers and possibilities normally ignored by games of this type.
And watch out for the logs rolling downhill!
Combat is diverse and carries a steep difficulty when the player lacks preparation, and exploring a new biome can easily turn into a string of deaths if the player does not have a plan B and C.
Multiplayer is also a strong point of the game: bringing your friends to your world or joining them in the world they are playing in is very quick and practical, and the connections seem to work very well. Creating (or renting) dedicated servers on both Windows and Unix machines also proved to be an extremely easy and quick task, definitely recommended.
As for controls, mouse and keyboard are still much more intuitive and practical; unfortunately, navigating the game’s interface is not ideal with a controller.
Setting
The Norse theme is very charming and, even though most of the monsters are known from other fantasy games, the look they received in Valheim is well defined within the game’s identity. From the small Goblins to the huge Bosses, such as the giant wooden being Elder, all of them show care in their development.
The game’s graphics are purposely ambiguous: at the same time that they try to land stunning visuals with light and shadow and 3D models with well-mapped lighting, its textures are purposely made in a pixelated way, combining two visual styles in its graphics.
The distant panoramas are fantastic, and environments such as the plains or the high seas bring incredible sensations. The experience on the open sea, sailing a small caravel, depending on the wind and under a storm, was both terrifying and thrilling.
The soundtrack, which appears at specific moments in the game that stays silent most of the time, shows the care the developers took to shape the player’s experience in important situations, and it carries out the task successfully.
Conclusion
Valheim is a game with immense potential, and the overwhelming majority of those who bought it seem to agree.
Of course, for an Early Access game, you should expect it not to be fully polished or for everything to work perfectly, but even the modding community is already well versed in helping solve problems and bringing new content.
Like millions of other players, I long for the next updates.
Valheim is available for PC and can be purchased on Steam.
Played on PC (Ryzen 7 3800X, RX 480) with a mouse (Logitech G502) and keyboard (Logitech G413).
Max Xavier
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