What is Valheim, the Viking game that is exploding on Steam?

Viking game Valheim is a survival sandbox experience that has been destroying Steam’s sales charts. Since its launch on February 2, Valheim has been at the top of the bestseller list and has an “extremely positive” rating, with almost 13,000 reviews. This vast game has a tiny download and looks like a 3D version of old school games like Runescape.

So, what exactly is Valheim, and why is it taking off so fast?

Action and adventure with friends

Valheimthe progress of is very similar to Terraria or Starbound, this advance seems organic and natural. Players start in a simple but vast meadow and learn how to hunt animals and build simple shelters. Players learn to punch small stone golems to death and create a club. From there, players can start building an initial settlement. That done, it’s time to start hunting wild boar, which drops the materials into a bow, which makes it easier to hunt deer. There is a clear path of progression, with each stage opening the next advance.

Eventually, my friends and I felt confident enough in the basics, so we explored. We found a big moose boss and fought him, dropping hard horns – now, I can use that to make a pick. This means that it is worth exploring the most dangerous Black Forest now, because we can extract the ore from within it. Once we have that ore, I can start making more sophisticated tools and armor, which in turn open up their own recipes and advancement options.

Image: Iron Gate / Coffee Stain Games

This is what a session with my usual gang of friends looks like. We want to go to the Black Forest to fight a giant, but there is a mountain range in our way. The mountains are freezing, but we see wolves and think we can get their hair to wrap. After some unsuccessful crumbs with the wolves, we marked the location on the map and vowed to come back and take revenge on another day.

We go south and travel around the mountains until we find a huge lake that we cannot cross alone. Instead, we settled in and built a wooden dock and a Viking ship. The ship transports us across the lake and we track and attack the ent, circling the giant tree with bows and spears. He retaliates by summoning huge roots and separating us with giant vines.

The fight goes well until the surroundings call dozens of goblins from the forest, so we flee in a panic, almost losing our ship in the process. We didn’t take any treasures, but on the way back, my husband sings slums while my friend takes the wheel and drives us home. We laughed and talked among ourselves, refreshed by the adventure.

As we explore, the world opens up, leading to mechanics like building trade routes, establishing a magical network of portals and learning how to navigate and map a nautical map. Valheim it feels like a world worth exploring and spending time on, especially since I don’t have to invest a lot of time to maintain the progress I’ve made.

The models are simple, pixelated and polygonal, but are elevated by beautiful shaders and lighting. It is a balance between modern comforts and old-fashioned nostalgia. Sure, hunting ents and fighting trolls is great, but sometimes I just sit on a raft and watch the water crash against the shore or the sun filtering through the trees in a meadow. It is cottagecore and deeply cozy, and the occasional brutal storm makes clear, sunny days even more attractive.

Image: Iron Gate / Coffee Stain Games

The life of a Viking

Creation and survival games usually involve a difficult start and an arduous routine before players can have the sweet experience of building huge bases, hunting down dangerous bosses and conquering a hostile world. Even survival game success stories like Rust came back to make things easier and more accessible for new players.

Valheimin contrast, it costs $ 20 and is highly affordable. Players take on the role of Vikings who were given eternal afterlife by Odin himself. One of Odin’s crows appears to provide tutorials, and the game gradually distributes the tools for you to acquire the basics of terraforming, agriculture, combat, bosses and breeding. You can’t go too deep without understanding your initial tools, and that leads to a good ramp to the game. Fortunately, you don’t have to spend a lot of time punching trees to gain wood before getting into the real action.

I only found minor bugs during my 20 hours in the game. I can play with up to nine friends and it’s super simple to connect to someone else’s server. I can even connect a controller without problems. These are small feats, but they are also problems that even AAA games like Fallout 76 had difficulty implementing it, so it’s a great relief to avoid all this kind of confusion.

Image: Iron Gate / Coffee Stain Games

The game also forgives mechanically, without any of the usual obstacles of survival games, such as expired food or prohibitive costs of repair and expansion. There are terrain manipulation tools and a construction system that allows players to build elaborate structures and extensive settlements. Building can be a little tricky, but players can put wood or fit the pieces, depending on their preference, which leads to something that is mostly easy and flexible. PvP is an alternator; unless i sign up, i don’t have to worry about another player destroying my house or sinking an ax in my back while farming.

Games like Rust or Fallout 76 they built huge communities around their survival game loops, but they also left other players in the cold with difficult design decisions designed to increase difficulty or technical problems. Valheim doesn’t do anything new or existing, but it doesn’t have to. Iron Gate has created a simple yet profound game that works at all levels, and that is enough to explode on Steam.

It is, in short, an indie game of survival and early access creation that actually job. There is nothing ridiculously flashy or brand new, but the developer Iron Gate has created a solid foundation. All the mechanics here have been done before in games like Ark or Conan Exiles, but the hard edges and frustrating grinds were sanded and smoothed. In a genre so full of derivative titles, opaque and totally broken, Valheim stands out simply because it works well and makes sense.