Have you ever sat in class or at your desk and daydreamed of being in another land? I know I have...many many times. I sometimes even awoke from those daydreams with drool coming out of my mouth. My daydreams are often about me being out in the woods, building a shelter, looking for food and occasionally battling some sort of goblin creature. Ok, maybe the goblin creature fantasy is a little weird.
I've been searching for a video game where I can live out my hobbies of playing Dungeon's & Dragons, hiking, fishing, bushcrafting and being a hero. Is being a hero a hobby? I was browsing the Steam library and saw the "Early Release" of a game called Valheim. Early release means they are offering the game to be played/play-tested while it's still being developed. How cool is that? I figured, "It's only $20 USD, why not give it a try?".
The gist of the Valheim storyline is that you are a dead viking warrior. All good stories start that way I think. Odin, the god of war, summoned the spirits of dead viking warriors to come to the dangerous and forsaken realm of Valheim to tame it. In the end, if you please Odin, you enter Valhalla...a sort of heaven for honorably deceased vikings. If you don't please Odin, well, I think it's best we don't find out. Rumor has it, if you don't please Odin you have to socialize with actual people in the real world. Yuck!
When you create a character and start a "seed" (world), the game procedurally creates the world you play in uniquely. So if you start a world and your friend starts a world they will be drastically different in their layout. The world layout consists of different biomes or environments. From easiest to hardest the biomes go: Meadows, Black Forest, Swamp, Mountains, Plains and Ocean. At the time of this writing there are a few biomes that are still in development, namely: Mistlands, Deep North and Ashlands. Each biome has unique landscape features, unique creatures, unique items to collect and a unique boss you will eventually try to defeat. And the world you create is really freakin' huge!
You start the game by being carried by a large bird which drops you at your starting point...a pleasant meadow with deer and boar frolicking around. As you get your feet wet you will occasionally talk to a black bird that appears when necessary to give you pointers. Early on you'll cut down some trees by punching them, build tools, collect food and learn how to building shelters. It is survival.
The building aspect of the game is fairly robust and the developers plan to release a large update soon that will add more pieces you can build with. Some folks that play the game just spend time building elaborate structures. My way of playing is to create a large central base. Then, as I adventure around, build small shelters where I can rest, store loot and cook health and stamina generating foods. You do a lot of running around, swimming and as you become more skilled, sailing and teleporting. Yes, you can build boats and teleports!
The creatures you come across are almost all hostile...except for deer and birds, they're afraid of you. Each, when killed, drops resources that can help you to either build, cook or craft with. Deer drop deer hides and meat. Graydwarves drop stone, wood, resin and their eyes (their eyes are used to build some magical things). Draugr (undead fighters) drop entrails you use with other ingredients to make sausage. Yummy! There are wolves, golems, blobs, skeletons, wraiths, sea serpents, deathsquitos (eek!)...and many more. As you play you'll enhance your weapon and survival skills. Creatures from a biome that were once feared will eventually be easier to kill. It is then that you'll want to start visiting the next biome for new challenges, new items and new adventures.
The game can be frustrating at times though. You can work really hard to get to a particular area, then a mob of creatures come, overwhelm you and kill your character. A tombstone appears where you died and all your items are kept in it while you reawaken back at your bed...which can sometimes be very, very far away. Another tough aspect about this situation is you have nothing on you when you reawaken. So, unless you have some backup gear in a chest where your bed is you have to run, sneak, punch your way back to your tombstone in your loin cloth.
One thing a friend and I learned is that playing this game sort of clouds your concept of time. Like you can literally sit down to play the game at 8:00pm and "5 minutes later" it's 1:00am. If you're not careful you could be playing when the actual sun comes up and from my experience that will result in the stink eye from your significant other. My boys who also play Valheim will exclaim as we drive by a peculiar wooded area, "Dad, that would be prime Graydwarf or Troll hunting area!" And often, I'd have to agree. The game really is immersive.
In all honesty, this is the most fun I've had gaming in a long long time. There are so many things to do, so many places to explore and so many creatures to run from! I find myself daydreaming of playing Valheim when I'm not playing Valheim.