Valheim Review

The survival genre exploded in popularity years ago with numerous games like DayZ, ARK, Rust and many, many others getting widespread attention. I've played a good few of these over the years but a lot of them come with their own frustrations, primarily around core mechanics such as hunger and environmental conditions. Hunger is usually a constant heath drain where you have to eat twenty meals per in-game day just to stay alive and environmental conditions seem another arbitrary health drain; balancing these elements to make them a threat but not an annoying one is, no doubt, difficult.

In this sense, Valheim is probably the best survival game I've played in a while, mainly for the reason that a lot of these survival elements are done far better than other survival games I've played. In Valheim, instead of being a meter that starts to kill you when it runs out, hunger is a way to increase your max health and stamina, as you can eat three things at a time which gives buffs to these attributes. Mix this with the only environmental drawback being the cold, which only happens at night to make it more perilous to venture into the dark and only lessens health recovery rather than damaging the player, and it's clear that Valheim's focus is more on exploration and fighting the various foes around the world instead of trying to satisfy some gauges to stay alive.

Resting indoors near a warm fire boosts health and stamina recovery

Valheim's world is procedurally generated and is made up of 5 main biome types, with each one being scattered around the map in either large or small areas, and the map is huge; after 45 hours on a single server, I haven't even explored halfway to the edge. Compounding on this is the combat which is as simple as it reasonably needs to be, each weapon type has different strengths and weaknesses which make them all fun to use especially when they have ample feedback to make them feel weighty and impactful, a solid hit on an enemy will cause them to stagger and have chunks fly out of them which is very satisfying.

One issue I had with the game as it currently is comes with the bosses, and it's one I noticed with the game's third boss, the Bonemass. This boss is weak to blunt damage, however until I and the people I was playing with looked it up, we had no idea that different enemies had resistances and weaknesses to different weapon types. In fact, until this point we'd all assumed blunt damage wasn't great for large enemies since early clubs and maces do less damage than bladed weapons on the same level, but much more knockback which we assumed was the tradeoff, and since big enemies can't be knocked back we'd all but ruled it out for boss fights. Maybe we missed some pertinent information along they way, but some suggestion that certain weapons are more effective against each boss would've prompted us to experiment more with the weapons we had. This doesn't ruin the entire game but it definitely left a bad taste in our mouths after we only found out about it after looking it up online.

Chopping down trees is a relatively painless activity, just, eh, watch where they fall

What I have no gripes with is the building system, which is built in such a way to encourage a surprising amount of creativity. For example, to sleep in a bed, the bed needs a fire nearby, but the fire generates smoke which can damage you if it pools up in an enclosed house, therefore you need to find a way to let smoke out while also not letting the fire be completely exposed for rain to put it out. You also have to make sure that the house has a good structural integrity otherwise new parts you place down will just immediately break, all of which comes together to encourage you to design a house in a way that works for you, and it is probably the aspect of the game I've enjoyed the most. Recently, I've spent a disproportionate amount of time constructing my own seaside longhouse complete with a room full of fires to cook food and a little attic area, and I've had a ton of fun doing it.

The graphical style is also something worthy of commendation, the overall style being reminiscent of the PlayStation 1 with most things having basic polygonal models with large, pixellated texures which apes that classic style well. However, this style looks surprisingly fantastic with modern lighting and post-processing effects which combines with various weather conditions like heavy rainstorms, dense fog, or stunning sunsets to make some truly gorgeous views, and this unique style contributes greatly to Valheim's identity.

With a branch of Yggdrasill always towering far above, the sky never fails to look beautiful

This identity is what sets Valheim apart from similar titles; it isn't the first game to feature these or similar mechanics or ideas, but it executes them in a way that is just different enough to carve out it's own place among the other giants of the survival genre (having passed four million sales in only a few weeks, it's popularity is already clear). There are some general teething problems, such as a few balancing issues and some bugs here and there, but nothing that can't be fixed as the game progresses through early access and into an eventual release, and I'm excited to see what content gets added as time goes on.