Valheim

Valheim is a sandbox survival game created by Iron Gate Studios and published by Coffee Stain Publishing as the early access title that aims to become one of the leaders in online cooperative play, rivaling titles like Minecraft, Rust, Don’t Starve, and many others. Immediately after its first Early Access release, this title attracted over 5 million users, becoming one of the most talked-about games in the world.

Built from the ground up by a team of just five developers, this title today has the potential to become one of the most important and influential titles in the survival sandbox genre.

The story of Valheim is focused on the ethereal afterlife world where slain Vikings go to prove themselves if they are fit to enter the halls of legendary Valhalla. However, instead of going directly to that mythical place, they are placed in the corner of the Norse afterlife world, equipped with nothing, forcing them to devise their way how to explore that world, settle, discover countless crafting recipes, and fight against an incredible variety of enemies in several distinct biomes.

Like in many other sandbox survival games, the simple process of day-to-day survival is made much more difficult by the various gameplay systems and random world events, but it has to be said that Valheim tends to stay away from actively trying to kill their players. Where other games would gladly kill players for being hungry or cold, here players will just be burdened with movement and carrying weight penalties until they can find a way to eat or get warm.

Valheim can be played solo, but the online component allows players to set up their servers where up to 10 of their friends can join and start developing their settlement, fighting against the harsh environment that surrounds them, evolving their simple caveman tools with more, and more advanced technologies, find and eliminate bosses that guard biomes such as Meadows, Swamp, Black Forest, Mountains, Plains, Ocean, Deep North, Mistlands, and Ashlands.

The game used a dynamic leveling system where repeats of some action (such as running, swimming, or jumping) will make that ability stronger and more reliable. Combat is focused on a wide array of one and two-handed medieval weapons, with the addition of shields and bows for advanced combat. Traversal is mostly done on foot, but water exploration can be made much easier by building boats.

Even in this Early Access form, Valheim showcases the brilliance of a well-crafted survival sandbox design. The game can offer an endless amount of fun to both solo and cooperative-minded players, with more add-ons being scheduled to be released in the post-launch period.

Valheim is a premium game available exclusively on Steam. Purchasing the Early Access version will grant players access to the full version of the game when it is released. Due to its simplistic but still detailed and well-simulated game world, Valheim requires a modern quad-core CPU, at least 8GB of RAM, and a competent modern video card. The game is optimized for all modern versions of Windows OS such as Windows 7 and newer.