Very Addictive Viking Survival

Valheim is an open world crafting survival game set in Viking mythology. It is a PvE Co-op environment for the most part but you can individually enable PvP and fight others who have set the same; I guess to see who is the best fighter?

Most of the game is PvE though, and just as well for it’s a cruel world. As with most survival games you rely heavily on your heath pool and stamina. These are increased with food consumed and boosted if you can maintain a balanced diet. Sure, you can survive on cooked meat but if you eat berries and mushrooms (early game) then you improve your overall health and therefore combat effectiveness, or at least your ability to run away!

You can run the game on your own PC and invite friends or you can get a dedicated server so that the world continues when you are offline. You start with creating basic stone weapons that you then try to upgrade to flint-based weapons and tools. You’ll need a base and a Workbench allows you to build within its area of influence. Building a base is easy-ish; you should make sure your wood poles are connected to the ground, ensure you have a proper roof (not more floor tiles) and ensure the walls are complete, otherwise your building will decay when it rains. You’ll need a fire inside but on the ground, so you’ll have to have a gap in your floor for that… and a chimney/vent above it for the smoke to escape, but that also needs to be covered by a roof angle to prevent the fire going out on a damp day. It is all logically complicated!

In order to progress to the next tech level you will need to harvest tributes and present them at a boss alter where you will summon the boss to fight. Each person attending will need to get the reward from the boss so if there are 4 of you, you’ll need to fight it four times! There’s no cool down so it’s relatively straight forward; if you can beat the boss.

After the first boss you gain the access to a pick axe and can start harvesting Copper and Tin to make Bronze which will then need for everything, including a boat. The more of you on the server the quicker those glorious resource nodes will evaporate and you’ll need to travel further to find more. You can sail to another island but beware, if you sail to close to the edge of the world…. Well, you’ll find out!

There are Dungeons called Burial Sites and Troll Caves which you can clear out to get the cores you will need for the Bronze production and Portals which allow you to travel any distance point to point as long as you have a matched pair of portals. These are a game changer when you get them but you can’t carry metal through them which is by design.

The game has so much going on and so many requirements and recipes and yet it is thoroughly addictive; I just can’t put this game down. As with so many games this is better in a group; a small group. Too many people on the server and the resource bun fight can get… interesting.

Overall, the game is brilliant and I cannot recommend it enough. It’s less than 1GB in size which these days is unusual; it runs well and looks good enough for the game it is presenting.

Originally published on 15 February 2021.