Well you might have heard some things about this little game, let me give you a small introduction.
Valheim is a third person crafting/survival/adventure type game, in an enormous open world that is procedurally generated. It was created by Irongate studios with a team of only 5 developers. The game is only 1GB, but is bigger than most games. You have a huge open world and the point of the game is to kill 5 bosses which are like Norse Gods I guess. The way you go about this is constantly upgrading your armor and weapons to the point you are an unstoppable Viking. You can play solo or up to 10 people in coop.
Now let me stop you right there before you click away, I usually dont really enjoy crafting or survival type games like Rust, Ark, Terrarria or even Minecraft (although I did build a skycastle in Minecraft once). I was ready to write off the game entirely based on the fact that it is a survival/crafting type game in some ways.
But this game offers something fresh, and is very polished imo. The game feels more like a grand adventure than most games, it gives you a sense of exploration.
It's also not much of a survival game. The only reason to eat food is to increase your health and stamina, besides that you don't have to drink water and your food will never spoil. The building is easy and intuitive, and works really well, better than expected. There is no PVP, so don't worry about some clown coming into your game and fucking your buildings up. In fact I have been playing solo for about 16 hours now and I'm really enjoying it, even if I have only scratched the bare surface.
The first few hours are quite simple, you get into the world and start chopping down trees, killing boars and building a house. Then you start getting into the combat and it's like a Dark Souls Lite kinda deal, where it sort of sucks but has animation priority and iframes when dodging. The fact that it's third person also gives it a Soulsy feel in some cases. As soon as you have some decent gear, you make your way to the first boss and it's pretty damn awesome how epic the battle can be.
I have to say this game really impressed me so far, and I'm curious to see what lies beyond the borders of my map. I have discovered most of my starting island, and it seems I have to venture out to see in a Longboat or something and face those ocean waves if I'm to find more biomes. I read that there are about 5 biomes in the game right now, but they will be adding more in the future. Yes the game is in early access, but feels very polished for a 20 dollar game.
Now I will bombard you with screenshots of my journey. Most of it is about 8-12 hours in, I didnt capture most of my starting out, sorry for that.
A ruined tower I found in the woods that only had stone left, rebuilt it with some of my wood and turned it into a forest tower base:
My big house and dock I built near the starting area:
The game is truly wonderful, don't write it off but play it for a few hours. It also has a slight RPG system in it where it levels up your skills as you use them, ala Oblivion. So the more you run or jump the higher your skill goes.
Reviews:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/892970/Valheim/Overwhelmingly Positive (54,492 reviews)
And it has apparantly sold over 2 million copies already!
If you guys want to play with me, or come help me out defeat this second boss I'm heading towards soon, I would love to try out some coop. For now I really like playing the game solo though, really gives you that lone Viking feel.