It is Thursday night at a time when the joke of the juernes no longer makes any sense. It could be any other night on any given day, but today is one of those nights that I will remember , for better or for worse, for a good season. Today I embark for Valheim.
I will remember it not only because Valheim is one of those brilliant promises that are out of the ordinary and that, as Minecraft was in its day, it could well be something much bigger and recognized in a few years. My adventure last night attests well.
Viking overdose
I come to Valheim to see what all the fuss is about, but also because it’s completely my thing. Despite the Viking overdose that I stuck with with Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, this little indie has a lot more of everything I like.
Yes, there are axes and exploration down a tube, but also crafting , animal farms, limitless construction and a good helping of fantastic critters.
I arrive, yes, with the fly behind my ear. What I have seen so far does not seem to give the feeling of offering a very polished game visually, it is an early access whose limits and ambition I do not know and, as usual in survival, it is a genre whose games you end up loving or hating because of three or four parameters.
In my case I am looking for freedom, variety and a constant flow of news that keeps me hooked on its loop and progress. And no, as I could see from the trailer, the first few minutes in the game don’t seem to give me any of that .
After creating a character and a server in which the seed that will procedurally shape your world will be planted, you set out to explore it alone or with a handful of friends. A little introduction from the hand of a crow that guides you in the first steps and to survive in your new virtual home .
A decaffeinated start
Anyone who has approached this genre knows what those first steps consist of. Break a bush with your fists, get its branches, grab a handful of stones and mount an ax .
From that point on, the normal thing to do would be to say ” hit a tree until you get its wood “, but in Valheim that doesn’t exactly work like that and, in fact, that mechanic has been part of the experience that will follow.
The point is that the trees have their own physics once they are cut down and, if by chance the trunk falls towards where you are -or it generates a chain effect that ends up knocking two or three more trees by hitting them with their fall-, most likely it will kill you.
Despite being the typical funny girl that seems to be something made to win the favor of laughter and gain a foothold on YouTube, Twitch or Reddit gifs and memes (watch out for possible spoilers), it is actually a sample of how far Valheim’s sick attention to detail arrives.
It’s certainly not something you’re used to seeing in budget-minded games, and even less so in an early access one. Nor something that, at that moment, could manage to see as something beyond a recurring joke within the game itself.
The daily life of the survival fan
The first few bars were slow for me. It didn’t seem to grow at the rate I usually like and seemed stuck in a vicious cycle where collecting wood, scavenging for stones and chasing wild boar were my only options.
Seeing that on my own the only thing left is to start building, I decide to listen to the crow and go in search of my first boss . A god of the forest that I can only awaken if I give two deer heads as a sacrifice. It’s time to go hunting again, but this time they will have to be deer and with a bow instead of a clean ax.
I push forward with it hoping the falling deer will drop the trophy I need, and as I do so, I begin to think that maybe the key is to be playing it alone rather than in company. That this with friends still earns a little more chicha and is less uphill. But just when I’m thinking about it, the downhill starts .
Looking for deer I have just entered an area called the black forest and, to my surprise, the enemies that swarm there – almost identical to those that I have already crossed and dispatched without major problems – are much tougher .
They start attacking and damaging me noticeably, so I run in the opposite direction, hoping they won’t kill me. And suddenly, the orc .
Valheim and orc, two things that go hand in hand
What must have been a pleasant walk through the forest killing deer from afar with a launching parable that I am beginning to have control of, suddenly I am confronted by a three-story-tall beast with a huge mace.
I dodge the first blow and turn around, but then I run into the critters I had been escaping from and, between a rock and a hard place, the orc lowers his mallet and blows me apart. What the hell just happened? Damn game of noses!
I reappear in my bed. Naked and without my things. It’s time to go back to the point where I fell to, taking advantage of the stealth system that I had ignored so far and avoiding being seen, picking up everything and getting to work. I must kill the boss, create a proper armor, and destroy that orc. I don’t care about the game, now it’s personal .
Finally it turns out that all I needed was a goal and, without practically realizing it, I am already inside the infinite cycle that Valheim proposes. I get the missing trophy, I make the sacrifice, I finish off the giant deer-shaped deity that throws lightning, and now I have what it takes to go after the bloody orc.
At the feet of Valheim
But like I said, I’m already in the devilish Valheim cycle. The one that, despite having you trapped with a more or less clear objective, begins to release new possibilities in your face so that you can stop what you are doing and get involved with another topic.
And from going in search of the orc, I go to ” I’m going to flatten this land to make a second house near the forest and be able to explore “, from there to “come on , but if I can make a raft “, from that I jump to ” to create a raft, the best thing is to have a jetty in an area where you can see a new island on the horizon ”, then I continue with a“ hey, there are skeletons! ”And I continue with an“ ah, I need to have the wind in my favor to be able to travel by boat ”to close with“ Can I fish? I can fish! ”…
Little by little Valheim begins to throw in my face all the genius that he had been hiding so far. From the smoke from an indoor fire that accumulates on the ceiling and forces me to create a chimney to continue, to the crossing of wild boars so that I don’t have to chase them and get their skins.
Several hours later I am dressed in a helmet, spear and even fire arrows with which to hunt down the orc, but… Wouldn’t it be great to be able to throw a lot of logs on it, taking advantage of this slope full of trees ?
And right there, watching the damn blue giant come closer as I cut down the last tree that would start the ripple effect, I understood why Valheim has sold over a million copies on Steam – and why I’ll remember tonight every time Once I start the PC and the Coffee Stain Studios game starts making eyes at me.
