Valheim News

Rival survival sims Palworld and the just-launched Enshrouded are now openly battling for hearts and minds on Steam, and here comes genre supremo Valheim out of the blind corner like, errrr, one of the celebrity WWE wrestlers who hasn't turned out to be Problematic - I don't know, maybe Zack Sabre Jr? Educate me, wrestling fans.

Valheim isn't waving a folding chair or a small flight of stairs, mind you. It's holding a development diary for the forthcoming Ashlands update, due sometime in the first half of 2024. The update introduces the titular Ashlands biome, a blend of graveyard and volcano level notable for the presence of burning skellingtons, some of whom emerge from glowering stone totems.

Read more

Hello 2024!

We hope you’ve all had a lovely yuletide and that you’re ready for another year in the tenth world, because we sure are! As we mentioned last time, we are aiming to release the Ashlands update sometime during the first half of this year, and we’re already hard at work to ensure that it happens.

We want to kick off the year right away with another episode of our Walk & Talk series; it seemed like a lot of you really appreciated episode one, and we hope you’ll enjoy listening to us chat once again:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Just like last time, this episode shows off some things we haven’t revealed previously. One such thing is a twitcher spawner, which you will encounter a lot of in the Ashlands. You’ll have to check out the video to hear what we have to say about them, but we’ll give you a peek of what they look like right here:



Something else we want to show you is an updated visual of the fallen valkyrie. She really has come a long way from where we started out with her, and you’d better keep an eye on the sky if you want to avoid a swift death!



While most things in the Ashlands are indeed out to get you, there are still places where you might find some rest and refuge (at least for a precious moment or two). This temple is one such place, though you still need to be on your guard in case the charred dead decide to return to their place of worship…



[h3]Build of the Month[/h3]

For the first Build of the Month this year we want to highlight this lakehouse by JosephMavridis! It was a very hard choice this month, so we suspect many of you have had some extra time to build over the holidays! If you want your creation to be featured in this section, use the hashtag #ValheimBotM on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook. Due to changes in the tagging system on Facebook and Instagram, please also send us a DM with a link to your entry as well as using the hashtag if you post there! You can view previous builds in this thread on Steam.



May your new year be prosperous!

/The Iron Gate Team

If you’d like to discuss the content of this post, please visit our Discord, or our forums on Reddit and Steam, or make a comment on social media!

Well met, vikings!

The year is drawing to a close and we have reached the final dev blog for 2023. We know that a lot of you have been asking about when the Ashlands update is due to be released, and we now want to officially confirm that it will be released sometime during the first half of 2024! Like with all our updates, it will hit the PTB first and then the live version a short while after that.

But for now we want to leave you with a little something over the holidays, so we’re going to share with you the first of a short series of “Walk & Talk” videos, in which community manager Josefin, artist/generalist Robin and programmer Jonathan chat about some Valheim and Ashlands topics. It’s not unlike the Fireside Chat videos we have previously made, but in a slightly different packaging:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Just in case you missed it, we have also shared another interview with one of our freelancers. This time it was Lee Williams, the writer behind a lot of Valheim’s lore, who got to introduce himself and his creative process!

And now, as usual, over to the teasers!

Since it’s almost yuletide, we wanted to show you some of the tasty-looking dishes we have cooked up in the Ashlands kitchens. May we tempt you with some Mashed Meat, a Piquant Pie, or perhaps a Spicy Marmalade?



Of course, you can’t cook without ingredients. Not much can grow in the hot and arid landscape of the Ashlands, but some plants are resilient enough to still thrive there. We thought we’d give you a glimpse of what they will look like:



And last, but the very opposite of least, we want to show you a hint of how absolutely badass you’ll be able to look in the Ashlands:



[h3]Build of the Month[/h3]

The final Build of the Month for 2023 we would like to award to paddy_fr for this base in the snowy Mountains! If you want your creation to be featured in this section, use the hashtag #ValheimBotM on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook. Due to changes in the tagging system on Facebook and Instagram, please also send us a DM with a link to your entry as well as using the hashtag if you post there! You can view previous builds in this thread on Steam.



A merry yuletide and a happy new year to you all!

/The Iron Gate team

If you’d like to discuss the content of this post, please visit our Discord, or our forums on Reddit and Steam, or make a comment on social media!

Aside from some regular fixes and tweaks, this patch features two special things that we really hope you will appreciate! Firstly we have changed the seasonal items to be set to activate depending on the date. Since we're in December, that means the yuletide items will be available right now! And the second highly requested feature is that we have added keyboard/mouse support for Xbox, so that you can play the game however you prefer!

Happy holidays!


[h3]Abbreviated patch notes:[/h3]
* Settings menu revamped
* Added automatic toggling of seasonal items
* Multiple bug fixes

[h3]Detailed patch notes:[/h3]
Fixes & improvements:
* Fixed blurry item counters in inventory
* Fixed issue where player profile link in Player List would open multiple times
* Fixed problem where text "None" was hard coded in the build HUD to instead use localized string
* Enabled auto-size on BuildHUD amount text objects as they need to be sized down for some translations to fit
* Alleviated issue with music stuttering when playing with low FPS
* Added automatic toggling of seasonal items
* Fixed issue where the skill value UI text wouldn't update properly for bonus levels
* Added proper support for IME-input
* Added NumPad support for the Hotbar
* Fixed bug where key hints wouldn't display correctly on non-QWERTY keyboard layouts
* Implemented a system to detect low local disk space when saving
* Fixed an issue where admins couldn’t kick players via the player list UI on dedicated servers
* Tweaked boss-spawning to prevent bosses from getting stuck
* Fixed an issue where signs would be flashing with anti-aliasing on
* Fixed a bug that could cause boats to take damage due to low FPS
* Fixed bug where D-pad input was unresponsive in menus on Steam Deck
* Localization updated

Settings menu revamped:
* Split "Controls" tab into two: "Controller" and "Keyboard & Mouse"
* New tabs "Gameplay" and "Accessibility" for PC and Linux version with according settings
* Some settings can be found on multiple tabs so they can be found more easily
* Reordered some settings into other tabs
* Tool-tips for some settings to clarify their functionality
* Predefined graphic modes for PC and Linux: "Performance", "Quality", "Balanced" and "Very low"
* Added a "Keyboard & Mouse" tab for Xbox
* More graphic customization for Xbox versions
* Separate settings to invert the camera for controller and mouse
* Fixed overlapping of controller button labels

Xbox:
* Added Keyboard/Mouse support for Xbox

This update is for the Public Test branch of Valheim, and may therefore be unstable. Before we launch this update to the Default version of the game, we want to make sure to have a chance to discover bugs and adjust the balancing, to give you the best game experience possible.
Access the Public Test branch by right clicking Valheim in your Steam library, and then select ‘Properties’. In the new window, select ‘Betas’ and type in the code “yesimadebackups”. The Public Test branch should now be available for you to choose from.
Please leave any feedback you may have in the appropriate channel in our Discord, or in the appropriate forum on our website.
As always, remember to be considerate towards players not partaking in the Public Test, in case they want to avoid spoilers.
As the password indicates, please make sure to make backups of your save files before playing.

This patch features some further fixes and tweaks, but hopefully it should be ready to be moved to the live branch soon!

[h3]Detailed Patch Notes:[/h3]
Fixes & improvements:
* Fixed bug where all mouse input was reset to "Mouse Back".
* Added fix for IME-input not working for first chat message.
* Fixed bug where the player can't reset keybindings if left mouse is set to switch tabs in settings
* Fixed overlapping graphic texts in settings
* Localization updated

Xbox:
* Removed render scale from all graphic presets
* Reset render scale for users on Xbox that have altered the render scale was done because the render scale is now disabled on Xbox
* Fixed issue where input wasn't validated properly on Xbox when using Keyboard/mouse input