Valheim Forever?

Wilhelm is playing Valheim again. He says "So there I was, in Valheim again… for what, the fifth or sixth run?  How much appeal could the game have left for me?"

Tipa is playing Valheim again. She says "I’ve played Valheim a lot; I’m not really sure how much I can really say about it that I have not said before."

I'm playing Valheim again. It's my most-played game on Steam at nearly 400 hours, seven of them since the 1.0 official launch earlier this month.

Everything Wilhelm and Tipa say about Valheim, I'm going to say too. The early game is compelling. The low-rent graphics are magical. Going through the grind again does not appeal. Mods make the game better...

And really what is there to say, any more? Everyone who's even remotely interested has played already. Everyone in the blogosphere has read too many posts about it, all of them different and yet all of them still very much the same.

Valheim has the simplest gameplay loop. You start out almost naked in some pleasant countryside. If you're lucky the sun is still up. You figure out how to make tools and weapons and somewhere to live. Then you figure out how to do it better. Then you kill a boss and the whole cycle begins again. And you keep doing that until the credits roll except until this month there were no credits so you just stopped when you'd had enough.

Except, why? Why do any of that?  As Wilhelm also says "The whole thing can be so peaceful and engaging that I wonder why I feel I must do anything at all."

 

I've always wondered. Even right at the start. As an explorer, my curiosity kept me going, all the way to the end of the Plains on my initial run, but long before then I'd realised that, if that was really me there, I'd never have left the Meadows where I started.

I mean, why would you? Why would anyone? The first biome, Meadows, is all lush, green grass, twinkling streams, placid lakes, airy woodland, lovely beaches. There's food everywhere for the taking - berries, honey, mushrooms - and the killing - venison and boar. You don't even need to build your own home. You can just fix up one of the many abandoned villages or farms, plant carrots, raise boars, live the good life. 

And it's mostly safe. The boars can be a bit aggressive and the odd Greydwarf or skeleton wanders in from the Black Forest from time to time but nothing to worry about. Not once you've made yourself some leather gear to wear and an axe to defend yourself. Just be sure to be inside with the doors locked at night and you'll be fine.

So this time, that's what I thought I'd do. Instead of hauling myself laboriously up the tech ladder all over again, I thought I'd find out how long the game could hold my attention if I didn't do any of that. If I just lived there.

And since I wasn't planning on playing the game "properly", I also figured why should I have to deal with any more problems than I absolutely had to? So I went into the controls and dialled everything down to the lowest difficulty possible. Would it still be fun that way?

I set combat to Very Easy and mobs to passive. I wasn't going to fight anything I didn't have to and if I did have to I wanted it over as quickly as possible. I removed the death penalty so I wouldn't have to keep running back to get my stuff every time I died. Not that I was planning on dying much. And of course I switched off raids. I did that, after a while, even back  when I was playing normally. Raids get old fast.

I also allowed for items to be taken through portals although exactly what that means I'm not sure yet because at time of writing I don't have any portals. I'm sure it'll come in handy at some point.

 

As for Mods, I would have liked to add some of those as well but playing through GeForce Now and with 1.0 having broken most of the Mods I used to use, it seemed like more effort than I wanted to get into right away, especially not knowing how long I'd be sticking around. If I carry on much longer, though, I think I'll have to buckle down and get some. I'm sure as heck not going through the Mistlands without removing the mist.

But the Mistlands is a long way off. So far, after seven hours of searching, I can't even find the Swamp. 

I started out as usual, making a shack to huddle in out of the rain, killing a few boars for leather (One hit and they explode.) so I could make some clothes, gathering a few provisions for the trail and then setting out to see what I could find. 

One thing that seems a little different is that there are megalithic open tombs everywhere, many with piles of bones in them. I don't remember those. And bears. Bears are new.

I punched a bear. I don't recommend it. It was unnecessary and foolish. I died. My only death so far although I have nearly drowned several times. I've been poisoned by bees, too. More than once. Apparently the non-aggro mobs thing doesn't apply to bees. I hope it works for Deathsquitos.

After a few game-days of aimless wandering I decided I probably ought to map the coast. There's no way to know whether you're on an island or a continent or what biomes there are nearby, other than to go and look. Well, there is, but that's cheating. Not that I have anything against cheating, obviously.

I started out walking around the coast, going widdershins. It turned out not to be a coast at all. I was next to a huge inland lake. Good thing I didn't bother making a raft.

 

I found the real coast and walked around that instead. It took me several more days. Travel in Valheim is slow. Eventually I'd seen the whole place or near enough. I was on a very big island, all Meadows, Black Forest and Mountains.The first two were safe to explore but you can't make friends with the weather. Cold still kills. I'd need a Mod to stop that.

What I was hoping for was some Plains. I really like the Plains. It's always sunny there and the colors are really cheerful and uplifting. If nothing's going to attack you, the Plains is where you'd want to live. Preferably on a cute little island just off the coast. One with some nice beaches. 

I made a raft. I don't like rafts much. Who does? But they do a job. I made one and went where the wind took me (Another Mod I could do with...) which, luckily for me, was straight to the land I could vaguely see on the horizon. As I got close, some mist came down and obscured everything and I worried for a moment I was heading into those awful Mistlands but it was just some sea fog.

Where I ended up wasn't much more use to me than the Mistlands, though, even if it was a lot more pleasant. A small archipelago of tiny islands out in the ocean. Mostly Meadow. A little Black Forest. 

So now I'm stuck on a cold, rainy island far out at sea, no better off than I was before. I'm going to have to stock up on berries, wait for a good wind and set sail again. 

And the weird thing is, I know I will. This game is ridiculously easy to get back into, even when there's nothing new you want to do and nowhere new you want to see. (The only way I'll be seeing the Deep North is on a fly-by like I did for Ashlands.)

But I don't need to see the new biome to have fun in Valheim all over again. All survival games have an element of pure idling, where you just wander around, chopping down trees and picking up stones and enjoying the ambience but Valheim is the only one where that seems like it's enough to keep you coming back again and again for another visit. 

If Light No Fire turns out to be not much more than a very big Valheim, I'll be more than satisfied.