Survival game ‘Valheim’ sold four million copies in three weeks of early access

It’s only been three weeks since Iron Gate Studio, a team of five in Sweden, released Valheim and he already has a huge hit on his hands. The cooperative Viking survival game has sold over four million copies, although it’s still in Early Access on Steam.

Valheim takes place in a procedurally generated open world in the Viking afterlife, where you start with next to nothing. You will need to collect food and materials, and you will craft tools, build shelters, and fight gods and creatures. It may all sound familiar, but it’s like many other survival games – you won’t die if you don’t eat, for example. You don’t have to worry about taking up arms against other players unless you want to either. The cooperative function supports up to 10 players, so you can play with nine of your friends.

With the help of all of that, plus a degree of polish that many Early Access games lack and an extremely metallic trailer, Valheim took off in a huge way. Last weekend, it peaked at over 500,000 players, a feat only four other games have ever achieved on Steam. Even big hitters like Grand Theft Auto V and Destiny 2 exceeded between 130,000 and 150,000. Iron Gate says players have already spent over 10,000 years exploring, building and fighting in his game.

Valheim has proven to be popular among streamers and Twitch viewers as well. It hit a peak simultaneous audience of 188,000 earlier this week.

It remains to be seen if Valheim can maintain this level of interest and momentum in the long run as Iron Gate continues to work on the game. Although it is only a PC for now, future console versions and of mobile would surely stimulate interest. At least for now, Valheim seems untouchable.