The survival game Valheim has launched in Early Access on Steam and is already gaining popularity. The game constantly attracts new players who are now taking their first steps. MeinMMO reveals 11 things that will make your start easier.
What is Valheim? In Valheim, you play as a Norseman in a mythical land, trying to gain the favor of the gods. To do this, you must defeat powerful enemies and bosses and prove that you are the strongest warriors.
You start with nothing in a large world and must secure your survival. To do this, you build your own home, tools, and weapons. The world offers many areas to explore, different biomes, and dangers that you must face. The first trailer for Valheim already showed how tough you need to be. At launch, there is a new trailer featuring gameplay of the game:
Meanwhile, Valheim is in Early Access on Steam and is currently well-received. The survival game has already reached a peak of 31,990 concurrent players (via steamcharts). Our tips will help you survive your first hours in Valheim.
1. First build tools, weapons & aids instead of a house
One of your first tasks in Valheim is to build a workbench and cover it. Only if it is covered can you fully utilize it. Otherwise, it serves merely as a construction site with an effective area.
Many players therefore quickly gather wood and build their first home around the workbench. However, this is wasteful because you only need a shelter. A few walls and roofs will suffice; the workbench must not stand out in the open.
This way, you save materials and can look for or create a suitable construction site by leveling the land.
What should I build instead? Use your resources to craft all the essential tools and aids. Especially early on, collect flint near water in the meadows for the flint axe – it is significantly stronger than the stone one. Important for the start are:
- an axe, preferably made of flint
- a flint spear for hunting, which can be thrown with the middle mouse button
- the hammer for construction
- a bed for respawning, should you die
- chests for storage
- a campfire with a cooking station
Tip: A hoe is not meant for gardening but allows you to flatten land. Craft a hoe early to define your building area.
You can place the bed along with a chest in a small plot right in front of the workbench, as the bed also needs to be covered. A minimalist shelter with all necessities consists of:
- 8 walls
- 2 26° outside roofs
- 4 26° roofs
- Workbench, bed, chest, and campfire
- Optional: a cooking station
- Total cost: 60-62x wood and 5x stone (hammer not included)
2. Storage is important
You will often need to go to the forest to gather more resources – such as meat, leather, or wood. You can make your excursions much more efficient by not just gathering what you immediately need.
Generally, collect as long as either your tool breaks or your inventory is full. This way, you have to go out less frequently but need enough chests.
If you create storage spaces, you can divide your time between gathering and building or crafting. Ideally, create a separate building for your chests and systematically sort all materials into them.
By having a storage house, you save space in the main house and don’t have to tear down or restructure things later.
3. Building parts can be torn down again
If you have already built a house around your workbench or accidentally placed building parts, you can easily tear them down again. Choose the hammer and try to place another part.
If you now set this part over an existing one, you can remove already placed items by pressing the middle mouse button. You receive some of the building materials back.
This works for normal building parts like walls and floors, as well as for objects like the workbench or campfires.
4. Small trees can be punched for wood
Many newcomers think they can only collect wood from the ground by looking for branches without an axe. However, you can also fell the first trees with your bare hands.
Look for smaller trees that are only slightly taller than you. Punch them, and after some time they will be destroyed, giving you a lot of wood in return. Especially practical if you want to build your first tools or buildings.
An additional advantage is that you can skill unarmed combat this way. When you punch small trees, your skill in using your fists increases.
5. Repairs cost nothing
Once you have built your first workbench and tool, you can search for more resources. However, your tool will lose durability and may eventually become unusable.
To prevent this, you can simply repair items at the workbench. This costs nothing in Valheim, unlike in most other survival games. It is possible that costs will be implemented later, but at least right now in Early Access, repairs are free.
This is particularly important when you move further away from home to explore new areas or go hunting. Before an expedition, you should always repair all your items.
6. Train on a stone
To be more effective with weapons, you need to skill them up. In Valheim, your ability with weapons or other skills increases by using the corresponding items or performing actions.
However, with weapons, it is not enough to just swing into the air. You need to attack something. But large rocks and stones will suffice for that. When you strike a stone with a weapon, your skill increases, and you deal more damage.
Note that this will decrease the durability of your weapons. So it’s better not to train in the middle of the forest, where enemies may appear and catch you with a broken weapon.
Some skills like sprinting, jumping, or swimming can also be improved by use. This happens passively, but you can also specifically run or jump. Skills like sneaking can only be improved near enemies—so just sneak around some deer for a few minutes.
7. Weapons reduce movement speed
Weapons have, in addition to attack and durability, another value: movement. This percentage value indicates how much a weapon or tool slows you down while carrying and moving with it.
Heavy and larger items like hammers or shields significantly slow you down. Lighter items like knives do not slow you at all. Be careful not to carry heavy items when you are on the move to conserve your stamina.
If you still want to be armed, you can equip your desired weapons and then put them away by pressing the “R” key. This way, you move at normal speed and can draw your weapons again at any time by pressing the key again.
8. Food buffs stack
Some of the first food items you find will be mushrooms, berries, and meat. Each item has different values to heal your health points or stamina and provides a buff.
These buffs heal you additionally over several minutes by a certain value per second. Important here is: Don’t just eat the strongest food, but several items at once. Because the buffs are combinable.
This only applies to different food items. For example, you can eat a piece of meat, a cooked neck tail, and a mushroom at the same time and benefit from their buffs. However, two different pieces of meat do not stack. For starters, the following three items are advisable:
- Cooked meat
- Cooked neck tail
- Mushrooms
Meat can be found almost everywhere, and mushrooms are stronger than berries. You can do without the neck tail if you don’t find any neks.
9. You need a fire in the house
To make your home cozy, you need a fireplace inside the house. The easiest way is to have a campfire in your house. To do this, you first need to place the campfire on the ground and then build your house around it, or you remove a floor piece and place your fire there.
However, it is important that the smoke can escape. So make sure you have a chimney or at least a hole in the wall near the roof. Some players reported that their character died from the trapped smoke (via PCGamer).
You need the fire to make your home “comfortable.” This value is important as it grants you a “Rested” buff when you are home near the fire. The buff increases stamina and health regeneration. The higher the comfort of your home, the longer the buff lasts.
10. Don’t use floors as a roof
When building your house, floor pieces might tempt you to use them as a roof since they have a practical shape and allow for easy huts. After all, square houses are very pragmatic.
However, in Valheim, you need a proper roof. If you use floors instead, the house won’t count as a “shelter,” and objects like the workbench or your bed won’t be considered “covered.”
Without a proper roof, you cannot use some of your objects and won’t have protection from the weather.
11. No damage without PvP
Valheim features “consensual PvP.” This means you can only attack other players if you activate PvP mode in your inventory. You can find that in the top right:
- two parallel swords mean: PvP is off
- crossed swords indicate that PvP is active
Players only deal damage to each other if both parties have PvP activated. If PvP is disabled, no other player can kill you. This also has another advantage.
If you play in a team, you can fight with your friend without active PvP, thereby leveling your combat skills. Since neither of you takes damage but is actively attacking, your abilities will improve.
With these tips, your first attempts in Valheim should go smoothly. If you enjoy the game and are looking for more great games in the genre, you can find the 25 best survival games 2021 for PC, PlayStation, and Xbox in our list.
