The Valheim sensation, with the Nordic theme of the survival genre, has totally blown away all other titles on Steam since it was released on February 2 as it was sold in five million copies in only a month, the Iron Gate Studio development team announced.
Priced between $ 19.99 and $ 16.99, depending on the region and discount, they have so far generated revenue of about $ 100 million. The five-member team achieved a success that has not been recorded in the world of MMO games recently.
Great Reviews and Enthusiastic Community
When the Swedish studio released the game, it was in the Early Access phase, and it has now reached the list of five most playable games on the entire platform with 500,000 players at the moment in the game. So it only has titles like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Dota 2, and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds ahead of it – all of which can be played at https://topcasinoexpert.com/currency/usd/ using the most wide-spread currency for payment – as it ranks fourth.
Valheim continues to attract praise from players, with over 115,000 positive user reviews on Steam. This game also climbs among the 250 best games of all time on the platform, ranking 39th. On Twitch, Valheim maintains a steady amount of viewers, and fans have now spent more than 35 million hours watching its gameplay.
What Makes the New Survival Game So Good?
What is Valheim? For starters, you play a Viking who, after his death, fights for the favor of the Nordic gods in the eponymous world of Valheim. You have to ensure your survival, collect resources, explore the world, and look for and kill powerful monsters and even bosses. At its core, Valheim is something like Minecraft meets Dark Souls.
It takes some time to get used to the graphics of the new game. Pixels and polygons remind of games from 10 to 20 years ago. Nevertheless, the game captivates fans.
The Basics: This Is How Survival Starts
After you have been dropped off by a Valkyrie in Valheim, Odin’s ravens Hugin and Munin appear and explain the game to you – or at least the basics. Thanks to these two you will learn basic mechanics such as gathering food and resources, building houses, exploring, and fighting. Especially at the beginning, it is important to listen carefully to what they have to say.
The start itself is very similar to any survival game:
- you are looking for food
- you collect wood and stones for the first tool and the first house
- you hunt your first prey and make armor and advanced items with simple weapons
- you explore your surroundings and dare to move further and further away from home
An important thing in Valheim is that you only learn what you discover by yourself. There are new recipes only if you collect new raw materials. With the first stones and the first wood, you will get to know components, while with the first metals you will get to know better weapons. This means you have to keep exploring Valheim.
How hard is it to survive? As far as the pure survival aspect of Valheim is concerned, it is a little different from classic survival games. You do not need food and water to survive. So you cannot starve to death, but you increase your maximum health and stamina for a limited time when you eat. Instead, the constant struggle against the world is the real danger to life. Mythical beings attack you again and again and you have to assert yourself against trolls, skeletons, and tree creatures in order to advance further.
In addition, Valheim offers conditions that make survival more difficult, such as:
- wetness and cold that slow down your regeneration
- exhaustion and frostbite slowly killing you
- smoke poisoning if your fire ignites in closed rooms
This makes it more important to pay attention to where and when you are traveling than to the provisions in your pockets.
Exploration Isn’t Optional
This is how progress works: In Valheim you only develop further if you discover new things, be it a new type of wood, a new metal, or a rare item from a dungeon or from a boss. Oftentimes, when you pick up new items, you will learn recipes that you can make using that item. Many new resources are only available in areas that you have yet to discover.
How do you get on in the game? Valheim offers different biomes with different resources and challenges. If you want to advance in the game, you have to visit them all and face increasingly tough opponents. So far there are:
- grasslands – this is where you usually start
- dark forests – somewhat harder regions
- swamps – significantly harder regions
- wide plains
- mountains that are full of snow and where you can freeze to death
- oceans that can only be sailed by ship
- Fog lands, Ashland, and the far north are under construction
You can only reach or actually use some of the existing biomes if you have previously mastered challenges in other areas.
Dungeons and Bosses: A Strong PvE
Each biome has a boss that it is associated with. The bosses drop special items that you can use to either learn new crafting recipes or to unlock certain objects and areas. As a result, you can usually dismantle new items for which you previously lacked the skills or tools. This is the only way to get stronger. In theory, you can explore the world naked, but you won’t survive long.
There are also dungeons scattered around such as troll caves or burial chambers that you can plunder for further resources. Valheim continues to urge you to explore every area and to trust yourself further.
All of this is linked to the story that begins with the start of Valheim: You should prove your worth as a warrior of Odin in the fight against his enemies. And you are only worthy if you can assert yourself against all the bosses in Valheim.
Valheim With Others: Co-Op and Multiplayer
This is how Valheim plays in co-op: You do not have to explore the dangerous world of Valheim on your own. You can play with other people at any time in co-op on a local or a rented server. You can either keep your character or create a new one. The process is the same in co-op as in a solo game. By default, you start your journey from the grasslands, looking for resources and fighting bosses.
Is it better with other players? The big advantage of the co-op is that you can share a building site and accommodation and thus need less space. In addition, fighting becomes easier when you tackle enemies in a group. In addition, the powerful reinforcements of the bosses work for everyone in the area. Actually, they have a cooldown of 20 minutes – with multiple players you can simply string them together.
In itself, Valheim is no better or worse in co-op than solo. It is just different. Those who like to build, explore, and fight with their friends should play together. Those who prefer to discover the world at their own pace or who want to follow the story and progress are also well served on their own.
Is there PvP? Valheim relies on ‘consensual PvP’. This means that you can turn PvP on and off in your inventory at any time. Players can only kill each other if both have PvP enabled as well.
In this way, you cannot be ‘scoffed at’ by other players. This is what sets Valheim apart from many other survival games such as Rust, in which toxic behavior is constantly present.
Conclusion: Valheim Is Good, but Not Finished Yet
Valheim is still in the development phase and many systems are not yet fully developed and are being upgraded or expanded. Whether this will improve or worsen, it remains to be seen. So far, however, Valheim is a first-class survival game that stands out despite or, perhaps, because of its rather simple graphics. Even weaker systems can handle it and make it accessible to a wide range of players.
It is a challenging game that combines classic elements such as survival and construction with an innovative progression system and exciting battles.