Fyonn
did their best!
Valheim kicks butt. Its one of those survival crafting games, but there are a few things that set it apart from others I've played. Valheim borrows the structure from mid-to-late game Terraria and makes it the whole game. You are here to fight the Forsaken, dudes Odin was supposed to kill, but sealed instead, and now they're getting sassy. You get dropped into Valheim by a pretty badass rendition of a Valkyrie that's kind of like an armored crow harpy. And Munin introduces you to the core concept of the game, with Hugin checking in with you regularly to provide guidance for what you should focus on next. The game uses PS1-resolution textures so everything looks like Vagrant Story but with modern lighting. The monsters are really cool. There doesn't seem to be any gross stuff in the game, as is always a worry with modern tastes surrounding Norse culture. You can play as a male or female character, and both models are muscular in the ways you'd expect of a fallen warrior chosen by a Valkyrie, and are treated with equal respect.
Looks like we're just from the latest batch of recruits.
Central to the game's loop are the bosses. Each of the game's boss must be summoned at one of its altars by providing an appropriate item as sacrifice. The altar will tell you which item, though it may not be immediately obvious how to get it. Every boss's altars appear in a specific biome, and that biome is the only place you need to go to get the stuff to summon the boss. Incidentally, that biome is also much more dangerous than the previous one, and has a bunch of resources you can only make use of if you've gotten an appropriate tool from killing the previous boss. You can't even make a pickax until you kill the first boss.
I didn't do that, I swear!
Valheim does have equipment and tools and structures with durability, but here's the thing: so long as you have a workbench or forge that is capable of making that item, you can repair it there for free. Lots of higher tier upgrades for your workbench and forge require metal, and while it's easy-peasy to make portals and link them together after a little while, raw ore and metal bars cannot go through portals with you. I think this is because the game really wants you to build a new outpost in every biome, because that's the only way to be able to conveniently process ore and build metal stuff. The reason the game wants you in the new biomes is because, of course, the monsters are harder, and until you beat the boss of the biome, you are at risk of a raid event involving the local monsters. Eventually, this includes trolls, which can wreck up wooden defense pretty quickly. There are ways to get around this (monsters can't jump, so a moat with a bridge that's not full connected will stymie them), but the game's pretty fair about this anyway, and just like equipment, you can repair structures for free with a hammer if you have a nearby workbench.
Hugin has a tendency to grace your new constructions by landing directly on top of them.
It's worth mentioning the combat for a moment, which is stamina-based, with attacking and blocking. It resembles Dark Souls a bit, but is no where near as hard. Enemies don't swarm any unlit location ala Minecraft; instead it seems like enemies tend to spawn in specific locations, often near ruins and such. If you're making noise via mining or chopping down trees, the game will periodically send a small squad of local monsters to check your business out. They're not immediately aware of your exact location, and the game has a pretty solid darkness-based stealth mechanic, so it's possible to avoid conflict. Sometimes it will send really spicy enemies after you, like a squad including a troll.
Steps for defeating a troll: 1) own a bow; 2) don't get hit in melee. Experienced readers might notice I failed to gather any flint in the Meadows, and consequently was under-geared for the Black Forest.
Combat and gathering feeds into the hunger mechanic, in which you have three "food slots" to fill up with a meal. And each meal provides a differing amount of health and stamina. Generally, the harder it is to make a food, the better the buff is. Raspberries aren't nearly as good as yellow mushrooms, and yellow mushrooms aren't nearly as good as cooked meat or cooked Neck tail (it's a weird lizard monster covered in lilypads). You can't just eat the same thing for all three slots, though, so there's a degree to which it resembles constructing actual meals. Without food, you have a measly 25 HP. My current It's Go Time meal, cooked meat + cooked Neck tail + a blueberry or yellow mushroom gets me over 100 HP. The more bonus HP food gives you, the longer it takes for the food to wear off, too. Much to my appreciation, the game seems balanced much more in favor of hunting and gathering rather than farming, which means I spend less time doing boring chores and more time doing fun chores like "ending the rule of the Forsaken."
While headed to the Meadows to get more Fine Wood, I noticed a tree in the distance having a normal one. Also, hey, there's a Neck on the other side of the stream!
Building structures in the game works a lot like Fallout 4 or 76 snap-build mechanics. You need a workbench nearby, the materials in your inventory, and a hammer. Then you pick what you want to build, and you can slap it wherever you want. Pieces also snap to other pieces, but it's a bit more flexible than the Fallout system, because you can freely rotate the piece around its snap point, so you can make weird-shaped fences and stuff if you want. The game cares about the structural integrity of what you build, and given the materials you find, the game's heavily weighted to making buildings that look like historical viking longhouses. You can find abandoned houses the Meadows if you need ideas. Honestly, you can just plop a workbench down next to one of those, repair the missing pieces, and move in yourself, if you like. Here's a tip: to sleep in a bed, you need fire nearby, but you'll start taking damage from smoke if it builds up in your house, so you need to ventilate it. You can just put a hole in your roof, but that will mean rainstorms will put out your fire, which is a Problem. At least until the rainstorm is over, at which point the fire will magically reignite. Instead, put a roof tile facing the "wrong" way, here's an example from my Black Forest base:
EDIT: I forgot to mention, the game also has actual dungeons. So far, I've only done Burial Mounds, which are pretty tight, dark spaces full of skeletons and ghosts. The tablet that marks where the next boss's altar is can usually only be found in the current region's dungeon, and the Black Forest's dungeons are your first source of Surtling Cores, which are necessary for building your metal processing stuff.
Looks like we're just from the latest batch of recruits.
Central to the game's loop are the bosses. Each of the game's boss must be summoned at one of its altars by providing an appropriate item as sacrifice. The altar will tell you which item, though it may not be immediately obvious how to get it. Every boss's altars appear in a specific biome, and that biome is the only place you need to go to get the stuff to summon the boss. Incidentally, that biome is also much more dangerous than the previous one, and has a bunch of resources you can only make use of if you've gotten an appropriate tool from killing the previous boss. You can't even make a pickax until you kill the first boss.
I didn't do that, I swear!
Valheim does have equipment and tools and structures with durability, but here's the thing: so long as you have a workbench or forge that is capable of making that item, you can repair it there for free. Lots of higher tier upgrades for your workbench and forge require metal, and while it's easy-peasy to make portals and link them together after a little while, raw ore and metal bars cannot go through portals with you. I think this is because the game really wants you to build a new outpost in every biome, because that's the only way to be able to conveniently process ore and build metal stuff. The reason the game wants you in the new biomes is because, of course, the monsters are harder, and until you beat the boss of the biome, you are at risk of a raid event involving the local monsters. Eventually, this includes trolls, which can wreck up wooden defense pretty quickly. There are ways to get around this (monsters can't jump, so a moat with a bridge that's not full connected will stymie them), but the game's pretty fair about this anyway, and just like equipment, you can repair structures for free with a hammer if you have a nearby workbench.
Hugin has a tendency to grace your new constructions by landing directly on top of them.
It's worth mentioning the combat for a moment, which is stamina-based, with attacking and blocking. It resembles Dark Souls a bit, but is no where near as hard. Enemies don't swarm any unlit location ala Minecraft; instead it seems like enemies tend to spawn in specific locations, often near ruins and such. If you're making noise via mining or chopping down trees, the game will periodically send a small squad of local monsters to check your business out. They're not immediately aware of your exact location, and the game has a pretty solid darkness-based stealth mechanic, so it's possible to avoid conflict. Sometimes it will send really spicy enemies after you, like a squad including a troll.
Steps for defeating a troll: 1) own a bow; 2) don't get hit in melee. Experienced readers might notice I failed to gather any flint in the Meadows, and consequently was under-geared for the Black Forest.
Combat and gathering feeds into the hunger mechanic, in which you have three "food slots" to fill up with a meal. And each meal provides a differing amount of health and stamina. Generally, the harder it is to make a food, the better the buff is. Raspberries aren't nearly as good as yellow mushrooms, and yellow mushrooms aren't nearly as good as cooked meat or cooked Neck tail (it's a weird lizard monster covered in lilypads). You can't just eat the same thing for all three slots, though, so there's a degree to which it resembles constructing actual meals. Without food, you have a measly 25 HP. My current It's Go Time meal, cooked meat + cooked Neck tail + a blueberry or yellow mushroom gets me over 100 HP. The more bonus HP food gives you, the longer it takes for the food to wear off, too. Much to my appreciation, the game seems balanced much more in favor of hunting and gathering rather than farming, which means I spend less time doing boring chores and more time doing fun chores like "ending the rule of the Forsaken."
While headed to the Meadows to get more Fine Wood, I noticed a tree in the distance having a normal one. Also, hey, there's a Neck on the other side of the stream!
Building structures in the game works a lot like Fallout 4 or 76 snap-build mechanics. You need a workbench nearby, the materials in your inventory, and a hammer. Then you pick what you want to build, and you can slap it wherever you want. Pieces also snap to other pieces, but it's a bit more flexible than the Fallout system, because you can freely rotate the piece around its snap point, so you can make weird-shaped fences and stuff if you want. The game cares about the structural integrity of what you build, and given the materials you find, the game's heavily weighted to making buildings that look like historical viking longhouses. You can find abandoned houses the Meadows if you need ideas. Honestly, you can just plop a workbench down next to one of those, repair the missing pieces, and move in yourself, if you like. Here's a tip: to sleep in a bed, you need fire nearby, but you'll start taking damage from smoke if it builds up in your house, so you need to ventilate it. You can just put a hole in your roof, but that will mean rainstorms will put out your fire, which is a Problem. At least until the rainstorm is over, at which point the fire will magically reignite. Instead, put a roof tile facing the "wrong" way, here's an example from my Black Forest base:
EDIT: I forgot to mention, the game also has actual dungeons. So far, I've only done Burial Mounds, which are pretty tight, dark spaces full of skeletons and ghosts. The tablet that marks where the next boss's altar is can usually only be found in the current region's dungeon, and the Black Forest's dungeons are your first source of Surtling Cores, which are necessary for building your metal processing stuff.
Last edited:
