What is Valheim, the exploding Viking game on Steam?

Viking game Valheim is a survival sandbox experience that tore up Steam’s sales charts. Since its launch on February 2, Valheim topped the best sellers list, and sits at an “overwhelmingly positive” rating with nearly 13,000 reviews. This huge game has a very small download and looks like a 3D version of old school games like Runic landscape.

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

Action and adventure with friends

Valheimthe progression of Terraria or Starbound, in this advancement feels organic and natural. Players start out in a simple but large meadow, and learn to hunt animals and build simple shelters. Players are taught how to kill small stone golems and how to form a club. From there, players can start building a starter colony. Once done, it’s time to start hunting wild boars, which drops the materials for a bow, making deer hunting easier. There is a clear path of progression, with each step opening the next advancement.

Eventually my friends and I feel confident enough in the basics so we explore. We find a great moose leader and fight him, which drops some hardwoods – now I can use him to craft a pickaxe. This means that the more dangerous Black Forest is worth exploring now, as we can mine the ore inside. Once we have this ore, I can start crafting more sophisticated tools and armor, which in turn opens up their own recipes and advancement options.

Image: Iron Gate / Coffee Stain Games

This is what a session with my usual group of friends might look 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 we think we can take their fur to bundle them up. After a few unsuccessful snatches with wolves, we mark the spot on the map and vow to come back and take revenge on another day.

We go south and hike through the mountains until we come across a huge lake that we cannot cross on our own. Instead, we settle in and build a wooden dock and a Viking longship. The longship takes us across the lake and we track and then attack the ent, circling the giant tree with bows and spears. He retaliates by summoning massive roots and tearing us apart with giant vines.

The fight goes well until the entity summons dozens of Wood Goblins, then we flee in panic, nearly losing our longship in the process. We didn’t have any treasure, but on the way home my husband sings sea songs while my boyfriend gets behind the wheel and drives us home. We laugh and chat among ourselves, invigorated by the adventure.

As we explore, the world opens up to the outside, leading to mechanisms like building trade routes, establishing a network of magical portals, and learning to navigate. and the cartography of a nautical chart. Valheim feels like a world worth exploring and spending time on, especially because I don’t have to spend a lot of time in it to maintain the progress I’ve made.

The models are simple, pixelated and polygonal, but they are enhanced by great shaders and lighting. It’s a balance between modern comfort and good old nostalgia. Sure, hunting and fighting trolls is great, but sometimes I just sit on a raft and watch the water flowing against the shore, or the sun filtering through the trees in a meadow. It’s a cottagecore and deeply comfortable, and the occasional brutal storm makes bright, sunny days even more appealing.

Image: Iron Gate / Coffee Stain Games

The life of a Viking

Crafting and survival games often involve a rough start and bitter grind before players can get the sweet experience of building massive bases, hunting down dangerous bosses, and conquering a hostile world. . Even success stories from survival games like Rust have come back to make things easier and more accessible to new players.

Valheim, on the other hand, is $ 20 and very affordable. Players take on the role of Vikings to whom Odin himself has granted eternal life. One of Odin’s Ravens shows up to provide tutorials, and the game slowly distributes tools that allow you to learn the basics of terraforming, farming, combat, bossing, and crafting. You can’t go too far without understanding your starting tools, and that leads to a good ramp to the game. Fortunately, you don’t have to spend a lot of time hitting trees to earn wood before you start. be able to get into real action.

I only encountered minor bugs during my 20 hours of play. I can play with up to nine friends and it’s super easy to connect to someone else’s server. I can even plug in a controller without any problem. These are small exploits, but they are also problems that even triple A games like Fallout 76 struggled to implement, so it’s a huge relief to avoid this kind of mess.

Image: Iron Gate / Coffee Stain Games

The game is also mechanically forgiving, with none of the usual survival game obstacles like expiring food or prohibitive repair and expansion costs. There are terrain manipulation tools and a building system that allows players to build elaborate structures and sprawling settlements. The construction can be a bit of a hassle, but players can either place wood freely or put pieces together to their liking, which leads to something that is most easy and flexible. PvP is a seesaw; Unless I agree, I don’t have to worry about another player destroying my house or ramming an ax into my back while I’m farming.

Games like Rust or Fall out 76 have built huge communities around their survival game loops, but they’ve also left other players out in the cold with tough design decisions meant to increase difficulty or technical issues. Valheim doesn’t do anything new or out there, but it’s not necessary. Iron Gate has created a simple yet deep game that works across the board, and that’s enough to explode on Steam.

It is, in short, an early access indie creation and survival game that works. There’s nothing ridiculously flashy or entirely new, but developer Iron Gate has created a solid foundation. All the mechanics here have already been done in games like Ark or Conan Exiles, but the hard edges and frustrating grinds have been sanded and smoothed out. In a genre so full of derivative, opaque and downright broken titles, Valheim simply stands out by functioning well and making sense.