Home and Home: Valheim’s Long Journey Through Early Access

Valheim took the gaming world by storm when it hit Early Access in February of this year. A complex survival game created by the (then) Iron Gate Studio of Sweden, consisting of five people, the launch caught a 9/10 review and in March there was more than a million players per team member.

Seven months later, he’s climbing the player charts again on Steam thanks to the release of “Hearth and Home,” Valheim’s first major update. The content drop brings with it a number of changes for all facets of the game: new building possibilities, new items to find (particularly in the Mountains), new food to cook, and more.

For some, seven months is a long wait between drinks, though veterans of other survival games like Subnautica and The Forest probably won’t think about it. And for Iron Gate Studio, it was a matter of priorities.

It’s not all murder and mayhem, you know?

“Basically the amount of people playing made it very important for us to fix a lot of bugs immediately after launch,” says Henrik Tonqvist, Co-Founder of Iron Gate Studio. “Nobody anticipated that Valheim would become as popular as it did practically from our launch. So it was quite a daunting task, making sure everyone can play our game.”

“I think we had said internally that we wanted to start working at Hogar y Hogar two weeks after early access [launch] “That was the plan, at least,” adds Robin Eyre, Lead Artist for Iron Gate. “But I still think we did it the right way, because we need a good foundation to build on. And we need people to be able to play the game, not just release content for a broken game. And even though we still have problems now, I think It was the right choice. And also, it was like a blessing in disguise, because all the players who came to the game allowed us to find all the [bugs] that we didn’t find during the beta. “

So if you go back to the Valheim releaseYou will see that the team had big plans for what they would release before the end of 2021.

“We had a roadmap at launch,” explains Henrik. “We had a lot of updates planned, but we made the decision to scrap that and go with a more dynamic plan for the game. I mean, we obviously have the big picture planned, with the new biomes and so forth, but we found that having a roadmap doesn’t. it was really sustainable for us as we developed the game in such a way that there are always new things we think about and we didn’t want to be chained by [those things]. “

“And also, the thing is that I think [milestones on] the roadmap seemed a bit bigger than it really should be, “Robin continues.” As with the ship customization and the Cult of the Wolf that was on the roadmap, they sound bigger than they really are. So it doesn’t mean they’re completely off the roadmap, it’s just that when we have time we’ll push those things between the larger content patches. Do not try to exaggerate or advertise it in a [major] way, just pass it on to people so they can try it out and play with it.

“Rather than where Mistlands is the next big thing we’re working on, it wouldn’t make sense to post that as a little update, where you get an enemy one week, and then the next week, you get another enemy. That really doesn’t make sense.” .

“We just want to do it in a more organic way,” says Henrik, finishing the thought.

In many ways, it’s as if Valheim is mimicking the general survival game experience. Developing Valheim, it seems, is a lot like playing Valheim, where you put together these big plans, set off on your mission, and then find yourself doing something wildly different along the way. And eventually you’ll end up completing your project, but those detours you took also add up to the experience enormously.

It is a good castle, but surely there is no swimming pool, English.

That experience has allowed the Iron Gate team to respond quickly to issues. Over the weekend, it quickly became apparent that the new food system was not working as expected. Home and Home added a ton of new recipes and rebalanced what food does for those who eat it, categorizing each meal into one of three areas; Health, stamina, and both.

Eating health or stamina foods increases their respective stat to a large extent, while the third category of foods increases both, but not by as much. It was combined with a rebalancing of combat in general, boiling down to a more role-focused fighting system. Health players could focus on the tank while Stamina players could deal sustained damage, and because roles can be switched by simply eating a different meal, players are not required to forever play as a tank or DPS.

It was tweaked a bit aggressively though, and solo players in particular had a hard time – they were no longer able to use the damage they once had or engage in combat for so long, people who played alone found themselves struggling with content that They had. previously mastered.

However, Iron Gate responded quickly, pulling out a balance patch before the weekend was over, adding health to Stamina foods, resistance to healthy foods, and a bit of both to intermediates. However, some people are still struggling.

And Hearthstone.

“Because of how the food system works now, we were a little concerned that it might be too harsh for some people,” explains Robin. “Especially the people who go to the end of the game, who don’t start from the beginning again. If you only go to the end of the game, when you’re on the plains, etc., and you just eat some random food [you find there]you’re probably going to die. “

“The balance patch … most people seem to be quite satisfied with it,” explains Henrik. “But with that said, we are closely watching what people are saying all the time.”

That’s the attitude that drives Iron Gate. The team pays close attention to what the community is saying and informs, not push, how they continue to develop the game. It is a constant balancing act. Items like the cartography table, which allows players to share their map with each other, and the destroyer, which destroys items, so there is no longer a need to create a landfill when something can no longer be used; both were suggestions from the community. .

OBLITERATE!

But other things that fans have been asking for remain absent. The inventory system, for example, is tremendously restrictive. You have limited space in your backpack, you have to deal with a tax system – inventory management is the real final boss in Valheim. Deciding what to bring and what to leave behind is sometimes just as important to your success as eating the right food, or not assaulting that Lox with a killer glint in his eye.

But the inventory system is part of that same balancing act: managing what players want against the game that Iron Gate wants to make.

“Basically when you play a survival game, I think one of the big decisions you make is what to take and what to leave behind.” Robin says. “So if you ask me I’d have a bit of a hard time trying to give more space to inventory because I think the choices you make make it more interesting. But obviously there’s a limit somewhere. And when we feel like we’ve hit the limit at Iron Gate I think a lot of players will have reached that limit by now. But when we reach that limit, maybe we can take another look at it. “

“This is an excellent example of one of the problems where what we want from Valheim and what our fans want is something we have to handle,” adds Henrik, laughing. “Make no mistake, it is obvious that people want more inventory space. And it is something that we are discussing.”

And Sloth loves Chunk.

My speech? With Hearth and Home you can put saddlebags on your tamed Loxen, why not saddlebags too? Then you can load your giant woolly bison onto a boat and sail across the ocean with those bags filled to the brim, only for a sea snake to appear, destroy the boat, and send everything you ever had to the bottom of the ocean.

“Perfect,” says Robin.

“No comment,” adds Henrik.

From here, Iron Gate makes its way to the Mistlands, an entirely new biome, with all new elements to explore. They keep the details close to their chest, but what we do know is that it will give players more of what they love about Valheim while remaining true to the great Viking vision of the Swedish team.

Joab Gilroy is an Australian freelancer who specializes in competitive online gaming. You can tweet him here.