Every now and then a blazing light of excellence will come hurtling out of the aether and collide with the world of gaming. No three-year advertisement campaign or celebrity endorsement at E3, just a game that has what it takes to capture the imagination of the entire industry. These last two weeks one such game has been dominating the headlines and my Steam friends list: that game is Valheim.

My Journey to the Promised Land

I’ll be really honest here, while watching this humble early access game dominate the top spot on Steam, I was simultaneously having a battle of my own. A few days after its February 2nd release date a couple of friends asked in our community chat if anyone was interested in playing this new survival game with a Viking theme. I immediately dismissed it due to the fact I’m knee-deep in games right now; that was my first mistake. A day later word of mouth was starting to spread and I could see this game deserved a look. I downloaded Valheim, whacked the graphics up to maximum and jumped in. My initial thoughts were that my graphic settings hadn’t been saved, everything was pixelated and after a few minutes, I just wasn't feeling it. I shut the game down and again, dismissed it as a fad that would pass in a day or two: this was my second mistake.

A day later I joined a group of friends who had been playing the game like their lives depended on it and it showed. While all suffering from sleep-deprived hallucinations (probably) they had advanced pretty far in the game. As I logging in I was ferried over to their current settlement, given some nice new troll armour and had a bronze axe thrust into my inexperienced hand. Unfortunately with ten people playing on a private server, the lag made the game almost unplayable with trees being felled and only falling thirty seconds later: this made gathering a nightmare. With no appreciation for the learning and effort it took to get to this stage of the game I once again lost interest. I wished my companions good luck, logged out and refunded Valheim: this was my third and final mistake.

I immediately regretted my decision, not just because I really did want to like Valheim but I also wanted to support this indie dev as much as I could. Almost as if Odin himself was listening, another friend contacted me and said he was setting up a private server with just four players; was I in? I re-purchased Valheim, something I’ve only ever done once before (No Man’s Sky) and logged in.

Animal, Vegetable, Mineral 

Leonardo da Vinci said that “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication”. Valheim is a survival game of a more humble design ethos and this is possibly what has endeared it to so many people in such a short amount of time. As I set off to meet my friend and his two companions it occurred to me that I had been playing Green Hell prior to this game, possibly one of the most realistic and demanding survival games I have ever played. This certainly didn't help me with my initial attempts to acclimate to this far more streamlined offering.

On starting you must create a character that right now is pretty bare-bones and reminded me a lot of vanilla WoW but with even less options if that is possible. You enter the world of Valheim being carried by a gigantic bird that drops you at some peculiar looking stones. As you start to get your bearings you will be given basic gameplay information by a talking crow, (as you do). Very quickly you will be gathering branches, small stones and maybe some raspberries. You can craft a few basic items such as stone axes on the fly which will then let you chop large trees. However, the building will start properly once you have created a workbench and hammer. 

This period of learning is usually one of the most satisfying of any survival game and I would urge you to avoid the plethora of ‘starting tips’ videos on the internet. Valheim in particular is a game that screams self-discovery and experimental gameplay. Once you have found a relatively flat piece of land you will want to start putting down some roots. This is where the developers have been very clever because workbenches need to be sheltered and have a roof over the top to work. This immediately gets you building and in the process fuelling the need to seek out resources. What I really like about Valheim is that it doesn’t smack you over the head at every opportunity which is what many survival games do. While building if you make a mistake you can just dismantle and get your resources back for another shot. While the developers have kept things accessible, don’t let that fool you because there are some quite clever systems in place here. If you build a fireplace, for example, you will also need to engineer a proper chimney or suffocating smoke with gather in your abode. Also when building larger structures there is actually a very robust weight simulation that takes into account structural integrity. This makes building bridges (or whatever else you can think up) such a satisfying aspect of the game. In addition, food isn’t required but eating a varied diet does buff your health and stamina threshold. 

Home Turf

There are currently five biomes in the current version of the game with more planned as development into early access marches ahead. When you start a new world it will be generated on a random seed, very much in the way Minecraft world generation works. While procedural world-building can often be associated with boring featureless environments, Valheim somehow manages to keep its terrain feeling handcrafted. This is partly down to how well the various places fit together but also dropping designed locations into the procedural soup. 

I can now see how beautiful and atmospheric this game world can be from the early morning sunrise lighting up the tree line to impossibly large waves crashing against the shore in a storm. There is also a wonderful depth of field effect that makes distant light sources at night look so inviting. There is a full day and night cycle at work which actually impacts the gameplay significantly. Once you have built your camp and have a bed it is best to sleep through the night as you get a rested buff. However, going for a midnight jaunt in the dark forest will also get you killed very quickly as enemies are far more dangerous and numerous at night. I remember when trying to set up a forward camp on the edge of the dark forest the light was fading. Suddenly in the twilight, there were many blinking eyes of green, red and blue. We didn't survive the night.

The many weather effects such as snow, fog and storms all look incredible: there is something wonderfully elemental about Valheim. I also love how in the forest tree are not just heading up at ninety degrees but will be growing at different angles. Oh yes, trees, the biggest killers in the game I will tell you. These wooden bastards have killed more of my friends than any troll you will meet. That is because Valheim has a wonderfully playful physics engine and when you fell a tree it will often come at you smashing other trees down in the process. This then becomes a legitimate way to defeat large groups of enemies and thus, we see the spark of true emergent gameplay.

One of the best elements of this game is that you can play with your friends. Hell, this game was made to be played with other people. It has been surprising how fast the members of my group have found roles for themselves. One being the chief architect at our camp, overseeing the placement of new buildings and the digging of our moat. We had to escort him to another biome so he could oversee the building of a vital bridge which was an epic journey in itself. Another has become an experienced warrior, scouting ahead in areas we don’t know and bringing the pain with his mightly antler hammer. The only downside to this is that the more people you have in one world the more laggy it can become. The best thing to do right now is to hire a dedicated server and pay a little extra for better performance. This lag issue is something the developers are aware of and will hopefully be ironed out over time. 

A Rock and an Axe

Very soon after landing in the world of Valheim it will start trying to do bad things to you. At first, these will be random encounters in the meadows (starting) biome as you find a good location to camp. Wild boars will try to take you out on site but that is ok because bacon. Greylings will also have a square go but don’t offer too much of a problem early on. As you progress most foes you vanquish will give you a resource worth fighting for, meat from boars, resin from Greylings etc. After a while, the wild things of this world will know where you hang your axe and directed attacks start coming at your settlement. This is when you need to start getting creative by digging out spiked trenches and upgrading your gear. 

Combat isn’t a super complex list of moves or special abilities in this game, but it is solid and satisfying. You can block, parry, roll and this all works as it should. Swinging a weapon can feel clunky and this is something I hope they do some work on. You can use a range of weapons from spears, axes and hammers. While I didn't like the slow-moving arrows from the bow at first, with patience I have now become a master archer capable of picking off deer from the other side of a meadow. 

With each biome comes a boss you will need to best and their defeat will grant you new abilities that will pave the road to the next encounter. I won’t go into too many details here but these boss fights are both challenging and impressive looking. In addition, you can also come across troll caves and various dungeons which also offer their own challenges. I know there are also plans to add mini-bosses to the game but even at this early stage, the world feels full of challenge and danger. My own fear of deep water has been tested in this game while setting out across the wild oceans looking for new lands to conquer. As you will discover, there are things out in them waters that do not play well with others. Overall I love the combat in Valheim and while it could do with some refinement it is already as solid as it needs to be.

Conclusion

I think my favourite part of Valheim is how much it reminds me of old game design. Titles that were hammered into existence for the pure love of gaming and not to feed a live service cash cow. When reading about the origins of the development team it is clear this is the culmination of many years doing other things in the industry. I get the impression that they have been very humbled by the monumental success Valheim is seeing and this makes me love the game even more. Early access often means unfinished, broken and overall a waste of time: but Valheim shows this doesn’t have to be the case.

The team at Iron Gate Studio have done pretty much everything right and shown exactly how to release an early access game. Accessible, playful and above all a genuine pleasure to play. This is not forgetting the one thing many developers seem to forget these days, that the game actually works. With such a low price of admission, there is absolutely no reason not to check out one of the most promising games in recent years. It is really exciting to think what this team could do now they have almost unlimited resources at their fingertips. I raise a Viking horn to the developers at Iron Gate Studio and wish them all the very best with Valheim.