Valheim (2021)

Never use to revisit games but I was in between games and was home sick earlier this year. Needed a comfort game and it was over 5 years since I played it. Lots of new things has got released since then.

Last time I just got to the Plain biome and never finished that boss there, even if I had put in around 250 hours in the game then. Many hours of grind and building bases.

This time I wanted to have a more chill experience so I downloaded some quality of life mods, turned up amount of loot a bit and turned off cost of building blocks. I started a new world and character so I still needed to discover everything and needed every material to craft in stations. I wasn’t in the mood of grinding for material this time 😄

Valheim is still fun and many new tweaks, materials, weapons and even magic! I liked the new biome Mistlands.

I played a lot this time too and enjoyed it very much UNTIL the horrible new biome Ashlands. Even with some forgiving settings I had big problems here. Couple of hours in Ashlands and I just lost interest to continue playing at all. Continue to build a little with the new materials I found in Ashlands but I felt finished here.

Despite the bad ending, this is still one of my favorite survival-games. Maybe a bad timing to revisit it earlier this year when they recently revealed the 1.0 release later this year!

Rating: 🌲🌲🌲🌲

I've been playing for about 2 years now with a friend, roughly once per two week, for a total of 150 hours of ingame time now. Valheim is a great game for this format. There's no intricate quests or storyline to remember. We often forgot what we were planning to do, since you discover and set most goals yourself, but the goals either don't matter or make themselves clear again. Each evening we play we accomplish something, yet there is still a lot to do and discover.

The game has a fun type of jank where the physics are just slightly wrong, melee combat doesn't quite work on height differences, summons will hit trees instead of enemies and chickens pile up on top of each other and escape over fences that way. It's never really game-destroying, but something you can learn to adapt to and lean into.

I believe many people will be frustrated when they run into some difficulty and keep dying. Dying is a frustrating experience for sure, as you lose some skill levels and have to retrieve your gear, and your gear is the main progression mechanic. In addition, we find the game quite difficult, and you will die if you don't take the time to upgrade gear and fight defensively. Honestly, you will die if you do these things, too. Death is a lot easier to deal with by having two players, as usually one person can clear out / distract the danger while you run for your gear, or at least you can chat through the tedium if you need to sail to the other side of the world again.

In short, while I usually prefer single player experiences, I strongly believe this game is elevated a lot by playing multiplayer with kindred spirits.

I did not like Valheim. I reviewed a lot of other Sandbox Survival Crafing games, which all work the same, and this game is no different.

Like all the others, you start as some nude Viking dude in the middle of nowhere, in a forest, and start your adventure. Immediately, you see some black shade monster things, walk towards them and want to teach them the way of the fist. However, they simply touch you and you are dead.

You respawn, say to yourself that you are not going to attempt that again and focus your attention on collecting resources. You punch a tree to get the wood; you use the wood to build a cabin. You mine, chop, harvest, collect and improve and, like all the other sandbox games, eventually stop caring and shutting down the game.

In Valheim you can build your own nice little house. However, the building mechanics, placement and rules are one of the worst I have ever seen. Only Ark is worse. You can never fit pieces together, the time it takes to choose a part that you want to build and switch back to a different part is horrendous and overall, it is a mess.

The graphics are ugly. It tries to have a unique and compressed artstyle, and in that, it certainly succeeded. I don't mind older games with square polygon graphics, old 2D games etc. but Valheim is just too pixelated, and I cannot see very well what I am doing.

The music is calming and relaxing, but the sound effects are really terrible. They sound hollow and muted.

The controls and inventory system are very general and easy to understand.

One thing I have to give Valheim credit for, is the fact that the developers managed to create a massive open world game, that is just 1 GB in total. This is very impressive.

With many of the Survival crafting open world games, I get bored out of my freaking mind very fast. This is because these games do not have and endgoal. When I make this statement, my buddies always say: "Bro, you can raid caves, defeat bosses and stuff". This is true, but they are just a distraction, give you some stuff and then you move on into the endless void. It is not like Enshrouded (a game that I also hate to the core) were you need to destroy all the shadow thingies that plague the land.

The biggest problem is when I am playing together. Although this made Valheim a lot more fun, creating a little Viking village, going on adventures and just have a good laugh, the following problem recurs in every game like Conan, Ark, Minecraft, Enshrouded, Atlas, and this one:

You slay a mighty Troll and collect its special resources. On your way back to your little village, you find a treasure chest with some very special loot in it. Proud that you did your part, you arrive at the village and want to share the spoils of war with your friends. However, uppon arriving, you see that one of your friends (yeah, THAT guy), has eight different chests, filled to the brim with all the special resources and legendary items that exists. In an instance all purpose, fun or goals die, and I instantly am done playing.

In the end, I just thought Valheim was not that special or unique and, as expected, I was bored out of my freaking mind after completing my little cabin, beating up some Trolls and endlessly wandering the limbo valley, never to complete the game.

Personally, I would not recommend this game.

I really enjoyed this game. The mechanics are easy to learn and you can get really creative in your builds. I like the fact that the game isn't overly punishing for not eating/drinking/being comfortable. You don't die when a meter depletes, you just get stronger when you do meet your needs.

The atmosphere is great and sailing into the unknown feels exiting and has you looking over your shoulder for monsters frequently.

The game is much more fun with friends though. and after a while the bosses get really challenging when facing them alone.

My friends and I have played a couple of these survival-esque games over the past year so we were excited to get started on this one. After 35 hours and completing all the content currently available, I have a lot of thoughts. Keep in mind that this game is still in Early Access, so it may sound like I'm being overly negative but I kind of expect these things to be fixed down the line.

Let's start with the negatives:

• My biggest gripe with this game is the stamina system. It's brutal. Extended fights, exploration, even just jumping up terrain is tough with how much stamina is depleted for everything you do.
• The levelling system is very lackluster. What's the difference between a Level 3 Sprint vs. a Level 15 Sprint? Everything just feels the same so I honestly couldn't tell if there was any drastic improvements in any skill.
• Why can't I bring metals through portals? I kind of understand the idea that they want you to make bases all around the world but you can bring almost everything else through a portal, why not metal?
• The armor creep was unbalanced. It took you forever to find enough ore to craft a tier of armor (especially if you had a group) and then once you're done with the current boss, the next enemies absolutely destroy you. All that work just to immediately ditch your armor and find the next set just felt unrewarding.

On the positive side:

• Exploration and discovery is great. Every time you discover a new boss or new type of enemy, there's this sense of wonder and amusement while trying to figure out how to defeat this new foe
• The art direction is beautiful. The combination of voxels and lighting work very well together.
• The music is quite relaxing which helps with the grind of finding resources
• My friend also says that the building mechanic is quite satisfying (although roofs are dumb)

Overall, the game has a lot of potential. There's a lot of work that needs to be done to balance the game but I'm definitely looking forward to seeing what the devs have in store.