Valheim is one of the most popular survival games on Steam and has a rating of 94% positive votes, making it nearly perfect. The developers are working hard on the next biome, but first, they want to address one of the game’s remaining weaknesses.
What kind of game is Valheim? Valheim is an open-world survival game set in a Viking environment, where you awaken as a fallen warrior in the tenth world of the world tree Yggdrasil. There, you must prove yourself by gathering resources, crafting tools and weapons, building settlements, and defeating mythical creatures.
The game world is procedurally generated and offers various biomes such as meadows, swamps, or mountains, each with its own dangers and boss opponents. You can experience Valheim alone or in co-op with up to ten players, working together to survive, explore, and build in a Nordic-inspired world.
Although Valheim has been in early access for over 4 years, it currently achieves a rating of 94% positive votes and around 25,358 players at its 24-hour peak (as of May 22, 2025). This makes the Viking survival game one of the most popular representatives of the genre.
With “Deep North”, Valheim’s next and final major expansion is in the works. Not much is known about it so far, and the developers want to let players “explore” as much as possible, as they stated in the latest developer blog. However, before the expansion can launch, they want to iron out one of the last weaknesses of the game.
The combat system as the last thorn in the side
Which weakness do the developers want to address? In the developer blog “Word From the Devs“, the developers have now commented on the current state and introduced one of the new opponents in the Deep North biome.
However, before they bring the update into the game, the developers want to address one of the remaining significant weaknesses of Valheim: the combat system. This is set to be specifically revised and smoothed out before the final expansion. In particular, the melee combat system should be improved to feel significantly better and cleaner than it currently does.
Players should also look forward to a new armor set that will be added to the game. In addition to this announcement, the developers will share a few small teasers about the final expansion Deep North.
In the blog and the latest YouTube video, you can catch a glimpse of a new opponent from the area named Elaking, who makes his way through the darkness with lanterns. However, when the expansion is set to be released remains unmentioned.
In addition to Valheim, there are also other survival games that draw from the Viking world and aesthetics. For example, ASKA, which does many similar things as Valheim but also has some differences. MeinMMO editor Benedict Grothaus put the demo to the test for about 5 hours and faced some setbacks: I lost to the first boss in a new survival game on Steam – I just wanted to build a Viking village
