Fans of survival games such as Ark: Survival Evolved and 7 Days to Die will be happy to hear about this upcoming game from Iron Gate Studio called Valheim.
Valheim is best explained by it’s Steam store short description which reads;
“A brutal multiplayer exploration and survival game set in a procedurally-generated purgatory inspired by viking culture. Battle, build, and conquer your way to a saga worthy of Odin’s patronage!”
The game will be published by Coffee Stain Studios which gamers may know from extremely popular games such as Deep Rock Galactic and Satisfactory.
You can view the Valheim announcement trailer here to get yourself excited for the game:
In the world of Valheim
Valheim will feature a large procedurally generated world. There will be multiple different biomes as shown in the many trailers and gameplay videos shown over on Iron Gate Studio’s official YouTube. The game is set in the 10th Norse world of Valheim. Your character has fallen in battle and the Valkyries have brought you to Valheim to bring order to the world and destroy the enemies of Odin.
A quote from the official website of Valheim reads;
“A beautiful, procedurally-generated world awaits you. Venture into deep dark forests, climb snow-peaked mountains and marvel at lush valleys. Take to the seas on a mighty longship, but be wary of sailing too far…”
From what we can see from the gameplay videos, the map has many different biomes and areas. Some of them including dense forests, as mentioned in the quote above, snowed out areas and also obviously at sea. No viking game would be complete without sea exploration.
Getting around the map
There seems to be a few different options for transportation around the map of Valheim. As shown in the trailers you can obviously walk around yourself, travel by sea, plus there is footage of a large bird flying the player to different point of the map. It is unknown to me whether this is apart of some kind of mounts flying system or whether it is a cleverly implemented fast-travel system. My money is on the latter.
It appears that sea travel is the best way to get around the map and I personally don’t think there should be any better way for a viking to get around. It is unclear at this point whether there is a land transportation system or mounts system planned for the game.
Play with friends! Valheim is Co-op
From the Steam page and also a video shown on the YouTube channel co-operative gameplay is possible. Many games in the same genre have implemented multiplayer into their games and it is great to see that you will be able to play Valheim with a friend too. Another great feature is that you will be able to set up and host your own server in the game. Player servers are always welcomed in the survival game community as it allows for players to tweak settings and rules exactly as they want. One of the worst parts about multiplayer in ARK: Survival Evolved was the official servers and the extreme server settings. It is really great to see that you can create your own player servers in Valheim.
You can see the co-op video posted by Iron Gate Studios here:
Creatures and NPCs in Valheim
There have been a few different NPCs shown in the media for Valheim so far. We have had a look at some of the enemies such as the sea serpent and the large golems in the snow as seen in the multiplayer trailer. The developers have mentioned constantly that the world of Valheim is hard. You will die a lot. Enemies are everywhere and it seems that you are going to have to grind for some resources and craft yourself some better weaponry and armor if you want to survive against these creatures.
The art style is great and has allowed for some really cool and diverse creature designs. I’m personally excited to dive into the game and try to discover all the enemies that the game has to offer.
Building and Crafting!
The game will also feature the ability to build up your own buildings and bases. The building system is a modular system where you will create walls and floors and click them together. Players of ARK and Conan will see they feature a similar building system. The game boasts the ability to “Raise your own viking mead halls, houses, castles, and more with our powerful construction interface.”
You will also have the ability to build your own ships, from longships to large battle cruiser. Personally very excited to build my own ships after being let down by pirate crafting game ATLAS.
Crafting in Valheim
Valheim will also feature a crafting system. You will not only have to craft yourself tools, weapons and armor. You will also have to craft yourself food items for sustenance. Plus, mead of course. How do you expect a viking to fight on an empty stomach?
When can you get your hands on Valheim?
Valheim will release on Steam on the 2nd of February, 2021. The games closed beta has been finished so there is currently nothing you can do at the moment but wait! I’ve had the game wish-listed since last July and I implore you to do the same so we can all get into the game as soon as possible!
You can Wish-list the game and obviously buy it when it releases on the Valheim steam page here!
I’ll see you in Valheim warriors!
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