Valheim, the new Viking survival game from Swedish developer Iron Gate, has sold over 2 million copies in less than two weeks since the launch of early access.
Valheim unleashes 1-10 players in an exuberantly lo-fi purgatory, generated procedurally from dense forests, sparkling oceans and snowy mountain peaks, pushing them towards an eventual final goal of reaching Asgard. Before that, however, there is a lot of cooperative exploration, creation, construction and battle to be done, as players gradually assemble the tools necessary to defeat powerful ancient beasts (and build pleasantly homemade huts along the way).
Iron Gate released Valheim on Steam with early access on February 2, and its popularity skyrocketed. It celebrated a peak of 160,000 simultaneous players in its first week of release, and that has more than doubled in the days since, surpassing 367,000 competitors to date.
Let’s play Valheim – INTO THE BARROW MOUNDS Valheim PC gameplay.
These numbers, if you’re wondering, have surpassed Steam’s perennial favorites like Team Fortress 2, Grand Theft Auto 5 and Ark: Survival Evolved, with only Dota 2 and Counter-Strike remaining untouched in the simultaneous ratings.
It also makes Valheim the latest in a growing list of indie multiplayer titles to have a sudden and massive success in the last year, joining names like Fall Guys (who broke the 2 million sales barrier in his first week on Steam) and Entre Nós, which peaked at 1.5 million players last September – enjoying a late success after a comparatively quiet launch in 2018.
“Everyone at Iron Gate has really appreciated all the messages, love, questions and thoughts from all of you, so please keep coming!” The Valheim developer wrote in his announcement of 2 million players on Steam. “We are excited to continue working with all of you to reach Asgard together, and we will be sharing more soon about what lies ahead.
Valheim must remain in development for initial access – where he will receive new biomes, enemies, bosses and weapons – for at least one year.