So among the long list of Rogue-like games having been released in the last few years, there’s another genre that has captivated gamers around the world and boomed in popularity. That being the survival genre. But unlike Roguelikes, survival is a tough nut to crack and one that can often lead to some epic bombs, kind of like Battle Royals, or Hero Shooters. Making games is hard and often, many of them are forgotten and end up dying out quickly. Much like a bad player in a survival game.

But it seems like we have a sleeper hit on our hands with the immensely popular Valheim. What is it about Valheim, the Norse-themed survival game which has captivated over 3 million players across the globe?

Read on.

What is Valheim?



Valheim is a Nordic/Viking-themed survival game, filled with brutal exploration and intense survival mechanics that demands all your cunning and might. For 1-10 players, Valhiem is set within a procedurally-generated purgatory inspired by Viking culture. Players can fight alone or band up with their friends to battle their way through legions of Nordic beasts and demons, build their own homes, forts, villages, and towns and conquer their way to a saga worthy of Odin’s patronage!

What Valheim offers is an experience that has been seen before but grants a few interesting twists to make it something incredibly special, even at these early stages.

What can you do in Valheim?

As a Viking warrior who has been literally dropped into Purgatory, your main goal is to survive long enough to prove your worth to Odin. To do this, you defeat several Odin’s most powerful rivals and bring peace to Valheim. But first, you need to make yourself ready, as you come into Valhiem with nothing but the skin on your back.

So, you must craft tools allowing you to hunt for food, build shelter, and forge weapons to fight deadly foes in the lands of Valheim. Important things such as shelter allow you to rest and be safe during dangerous nights and deadly storms. But it is a place to call home, express yourself, and build your dream home fit for a Viking warrior. Plus, you can build the Millennium Falcon and other cool pop culture references too!
But aside from the main goal, players are suitably encouraged to explore, discover, and make a life for themselves in Valhiem, alone or with friends. And this is where Valhiem excels.

Why Valheim is amazing!




What me and a few friends realised soon upon entering the world of Valheim, was the immense amount of freedom offered. While there is some very minor hand-holding, players are not bound to follow one route. They can do as they please and spend as much time doing whatever their heart cries out for. If you, like me and my friends, want to spend several hours building an ideal home, go for it.

If you want to venture off onto another island (one of which we deemed the scary island as it held the Black Forest and massive trolls!), so do it! Or if you fancy building a fort or even a bridge from the safe, trainee island to the scary island, yeah do it! Who cares if building a bridge takes a day in real life, you can do it! Raid underground dungeons for riches, hunt animals and become a master chef, be a Viking interior designer, Housebuilder or so on, there are so many possibilities here to unleash your creativity. Valheim is a game where you can so easily get lost into.
This is all mainly due to the simplicity and ease of learning even the major mechanics. Much of the small things and progression (i.e finding new recipes and discovering new tools) is through playing and experimenting. Everything felt organic and during your stages of discovery, you will always find a useful guide appearing to lend advice, without breaking immersion.

And speaking of immersion, Valheim is one of the most immensely engaging worlds in the survival generic. Often enough, survival games can feel either too big and empty or simply uninteresting and lifeless. Valheim feels Hughley alive and organic, with a dynamic weather system, that can really dampen spirits and your campfire if you are careful. Or with the fantastic and varied line-up of creatures and denizens that may provide food or resources, or simply may want to kill for fun.




Speaking of my experience, every step I took felt like a genuine adventure. One night playing with a few friends, I decided to venture off to the scary island for the first time, as they build their houses. Landing on shore I was terrified, but upon discovering an old house, I managed to chop and gather wood and other resources, to reinforce said old house. When night came, I rested in my new home, cooking some fish and boar, and settling in for the night as my friends continued with their tasks. I ventured out the next morning to explore, coming across freezing cold mountains and the dreaded Black Forest. Moments later I had discovered an underground tomb that held vital resources needed to make a forge. But before entering, I was spotted by a giant blue troll and what followed was an intense game of cat and mouse. It was enthralling and unnerving as I screamed down the mic and my friends were just having a nice old day at home.

But all of that was so exciting and it differs for all players I am sure. This resulted in me and my buddies deciding to make a fort and build a mighty bridge to take on the scary Island, and all before dealing with the first boss of the game.

What Valheim brings is a tremendously absorbing adventure, filled with freedom and discovery. But there are some things we would like to see improvements on.

What could be better?




Much of what you need to progress comes down to just playing and at times, this can be a little infuriating. While we live in an age where you can simply look at a Wiki and find out easily what is needed to get the Pick-Axe recipe, naturally discovering this or some of the other useful or key items is not much so. While there are tips, hints, and short guides in the game for a lot of the early stage, some things are completely left off the agenda and these are important things, such as the pickaxe, allowing you to mine for ore and make better stuff.

I also find that there is nothing new with gathering resources and it can be a dull, tedious affair like so many other survival games. Granted, there are some cool features, with the world and showing the impact you have on it. Such as deforestation or seeing the world grow back after you have harvested the natural resources from it. But doing the day-to-day tasks like chopping trees is just a chore and I understand how silly this sounds. But even making better tools for the job, has no significant impact or easing of the length. Improving an axe to chop a tree down faster does not seem to make it so.

But it’s all worth it at the end

Despite the grindy nature at times and the lack of info/clues to lead you on the right path naturally, Valheim is still an immense game. And I cannot get enough of chopping down a tree and seeing if it causes a Domino effect in the forest.

Twice I had killed a friend of mine, simply by chopping down a tree. Not on purpose mind you. Yeah, that is my story.

Overall?

While still in exceedingly early access, Valheim offers so much promise for the future. What I had played was an immense adventure, filled with wonderful discovery, freedom of creativity, and battling the unknown head-on. Yeah, it does have some of the tropes and grind that survival games do have, I hope that more hours being put in will allow me to discover more and find ease with the day-to-day tasks.

Another preview will be coming out soon enough, as me and my friend venture forth and spend another 20 odd hours playing in what could be the best Viking game ever!

The publisher kindly provided a number of Steam keys for the purpose of this preview

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