This update is for the Public Test branch of Valheim, and may therefore be unstable. Before we launch this update to the Default version of the game, we want to make sure to have a chance to discover bugs and adjust the balancing, to give you the best game experience possible.
Access the Public Test branch by right clicking Valheim in your Steam library, and then select ‘Properties’. In the new window, select ‘Betas’ and type in the code “yesimadebackups”. The Public Test branch should now be available for you to choose from.
As always, remember to be considerate towards players not partaking in the Public Test, in case they want to avoid spoilers.
As the password indicates, please make sure to make backups of your save files before playing.

This patch includes a lot of optimisations for many underlying systems of the game – this to improve in-game performance for both small and large worlds, network performance, load times and to drastically decrease save file sizes. We hope that these changes will be a significant improvement for some of you.

This does mean, however, that this patch is extra prone to have introduced some new and obscure bugs that we have yet to find, so any additional testing and bug reporting on this is greatly appreciated! Be sure to report them in our Discord in the public test channel or by filling out this form.

On a very important note, this patch makes your saves significantly less backwards compatible than other patches, so make sure you really do make extra backups this time. As always, we will do our best so that you will be able to continue with your save files when this goes live, but there is always a risk that you might have to restore your backups when playing on the public test.

Should this patch not be problem free, we will roll it back for the time being, and return to it at a later date. Therefore it is extra important that you make your backups this time.


* Many performance, memory and networking improvements for both small and large worlds
* World save file size greatly reduced
* Fixed hitbox issue for close combat and spear throwing issue
* Minimap pin input fixed on steam deck & big picture mode
* Added "UI scaling" to settings on Xbox
* Fixed endless loading of save manager when switching tabs too fast
* World save files that are corrupt, have load errors or have missing meta files can now be restored from the most recent backup directly from within the Select World menu by pressing the "Start" button.
* Save file stability & issues fixed
* Decreased load times in the Manage Saves menu.
* Fixed a bug that would cause the GUI to not update when deleting the bottommost backup in the Manage Saves menu.

Welcome to another peek behind the Valheim scenes!

First things first: Xbox players will likely (unfortunately) be aware of some issues that are still persisting with the console version, but you can rest assured that our Xbox teams at Piktiv and Fishlabs are working as hard and fast as they can to solve these issues. Keep an eye out on our website and our social media channels for updates and patch notes!

On a more fun note, we of course have some new content to tease you with this month as well! The Ashlands are continuing to develop, both art-wise and mechanics-wise. Last time we mentioned that something called “Fortress time!” would be an important aspect of the biome, and you might have seen something relating to that on social media recently. Here’s another look at that particular something, because you can’t have Fortress time! without some sturdy siege engines, right?



Of course, it won’t be just the fortresses themselves that are challenging, but also the creatures who guard them. We’ve already shown you some concept art of the Charred a while ago, as well as some earlier models of the Fallen Valkyrie, but now we want to show you their current state:





And though it won’t be guarding the fortresses, we also want to give you a new look at what shape the Bonemaw Serpent is taking, though it’s still a work in progress! As you can tell, the Ashlands creatures have been getting quite a bit of attention lately, and we’re also working out what their drops will be. And then later comes the question of what those drops will be used for…



When it comes to Hildir’s Quest, things are starting to really fall into place! There will be mini-bosses, new clothing, a wide range of server modifications, and more! With mostly testing left to do, we hope to be able to bring it out to the Public Test Branch and Flight in the next month or two. For now, we want to show you one more sneak peek of the clothes you’ll be able to add to your viking’s wardrobe – though they will not be all that easy to obtain:




This month we have our eyes on this longhouse that Versaugh1 built! If you want your creation to be featured, use the hashtag #ValheimBotM on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook. You can view previous builds in this thread on Steam.



Skål!
/The Iron Gate team

If you’d like to discuss the content of this post, please visit our Discord, or our forums on Reddit and Steam, or make a comment on social media!

Today’s patch includes some further fixes for Xbox issues, among other things! There will be a few more patches before all the Xbox issues have been fully resolved, but this is at the very least a step in the right direction.




* Backups are no longer deleted after being restored, so the same backup can now be restored multiple times.
* World saves with missing .fwl files now show up in the Manage Saves menu so that they can be deleted.
* Fixed a bug where backups couldn't be restored if the main save file was missing its .fwl file.
* Fixed a bug that made world saves in cloud storage create a blank .old file when saving, instead of no .old file.
* Player & ship markers are now shown correctly above map pins on the minimap
* Lighting effects reduced when using “reduce flashing lights” setting for Eikthyr antlers, all boss spawning, guardian power and boss stone activation
* Network compatibility version is now displayed separately in the console and log file and each non-pc platform has a platform prefix in the version text

* Improved stability and performance of world saving to decrease chance of saves being corrupted on microsoft store and xbox
* Save files that were corrupted as a result of incomplete file operations in cloud storage are detected and can no longer be started as empty worlds
* Fixed a bug where the time stamps of cloud saves were retrieved as UTC instead of local time.

Some further fixes today!


* Backups are no longer deleted after being restored, so the same backup can now be restored multiple times.
* World saves with missing .fwl files now show up in the Manage Saves menu so that they can be deleted.
* Fixed a bug where backups couldn't be restored if the main save file was missing its .fwl file.
* Fixed a bug that made world saves in cloud storage create a blank .old file when saving, instead of no .old file.

* Improved stability and performance of world saving to decrease chance of saves being corrupted on microsoft store and xbox
* Save files that were corrupted as a result of incomplete file operations in cloud storage are detected and can no longer be started as empty worlds
* Fixed a bug where the time stamps of cloud saves were retrieved as UTC instead of local time.

Unfortunately everything wasn’t as patched up as we believed last time, and there are still some issues with the world loading on Xbox. We’re working as fast as we can to fix it, and this is hopefully a step in that direction (although it’s not entirely done yet)!



* Improved stability and performance of world saving to decrease chance of saves being corrupted on microsoft store and xbox
* Player & ship markers are now shown correctly above map pins on the minimap
* Lighting effects reduced when using “reduce flashing lights” setting for Eikthyr antlers, all boss spawning, guardian power and boss stone activation
* Network compatibility version is now displayed separately in the console and log file and each non-pc platform has a platform prefix in the version text

In this patch we finally have a fix for the issue that caused worlds of a certain size to be reset to Day 1 on Xbox consoles. We are deeply sorry that people have been losing progress, and we hope that things will run smoothly from here on out.

If you have lost progress, you should now be able to restore some of it by using the “Manage saves” section in the main menu, provided that you still have backups with sufficient data.

This version may be displayed in the logs as .305 but .300 in the menu because of platform differences, but these are in fact the same version. We will rework the versioning for this in an upcoming patch and apologise for any confusion.



* Minor UI performance fixes
* Fixed a bug that could occur when rebinding keys

* Worlds on Xbox will no longer reset to Day 1 once they reach a certain size

Time for some hotfixes! This patch should fix an issue where Xbox players and PC players got different heightmaps, which could cause a player to appear to fly in the air or walk below ground. Unfortunately, if an Xbox player has built in an area like this, this change will cause buildings to collapse. We sincerely apologise for this, but it was important to make this change now to prevent further issues later down the line.

Something else that we are working on is a fix to the issue where Xbox worlds have been resetting to day 1 after reaching a certain size. We have identified the problem and believe we have found a solution to it, which should be featured in the next patch. For now, we apologise and thank you for your patience.

Remember that you can use the “Manage Saves” button in the world selection to recover an earlier version of your world if you’ve run into any world issues. And also, if you are having an unplayable game in the latest patch, you can always run the last stable version by changing to the ‘default_old’ branch on Steam.


* Left handed mouse fixed
* Manual saving bug fixed
* Swap Triggers controller option added
* Text & UI fixes
* Performance & various bug fixes


* Manual save no longer causes you to respawn where you saved and can be called to a dedicated server if you are on the admin list
* Left handed mouse should now work correctly again
* Added “Swap Triggers” to control options, to be able to fix a potential issue for PlayStation controllers
* Fixed performance issues in main menu
* Fixed some special characters appearing as squares and symbols should look more like they did before
* Hovertext and text input on signs should now be displayed correctly and can use \t and \n symbols
* Text on signs should now be lit correctly and no lower glow
* Various UI & text fixes that were being displayed incorrectly
* Fixed an issue where the scrolling was slow and inverted on linux
* Engine updated to unity version 2020.03.45
* Settings for keybindings should now be saved correctly


* Added graphic setting “Balanced Mode” with 40 FPS and 1440p on Series X and 900p on Series S (this will only display as an option of you have a screen which supports 40 FPS)
* Right stick now only controls the character rotation in character screen
* Right analog stick no longer has double functionality in the character creation menu
* Heightmap differences between Xbox and PC have now been almost entirely eliminated (this means some areas in Xbox worlds will have a significant terrain change, and if you have built in these areas the buildings may unfortunately collapse)

Greetings vikings!

Since our last blog post we have hit quite a big milestone for Valheim, namely releasing the game on Xbox! If you haven’t seen the cool trailer we made for that yet, you can check it out on our Youtube channel. Like we have promised ever since the announcement, there is full crossplay support, so you can play with your friends regardless of what platform you’re on. So if you’re a long-time Steam player who has been longing to get your console friends to visit your viking base, now is the time to convince them! We are aware of some bugs and issues, which we hope to have fixed as soon as possible, but we hope that the Xbox version is working smoothly for most players. If you’re experiencing any bugs, please make sure to report them to our bug tracker!

To celebrate the release we also have a 20% discount in our official merch store. The sale is active for another week, so if you want to grab yourself some nice Valheim items now is the time to do so!

But of course, the Xbox release isn’t all that has happened in the past month! We’ve also continued working on the Ashlands, and if you follow us on social media you might have seen some tests for what some Ashlands buildings might look like, as well as some further enemy designs!

Today we’d like to share a more recent version of the terrain of the biome. Can you feel yourself melting in the heat already?



While some graphical assets are already being worked on, we’re also fleshing out the gameplay loop of the Ashlands biome. You’re already used to going dungeon delving, but this time we’re testing out the concept of “Fortress time!”. Exactly what that will entail, well…you might be able to guess!

On the subject of the Hildir’s Quest update, we thought we would share some further details about Hildir herself. She has a few things in common with her brother Haldor, like for example that you will be able to find her where she has stopped with her wagon and lox. But why does her camp look so empty…?



Hildir’s camp is not the only new location that will be featured in that update, however. Particularly helpful vikings – or very lucky explorers – will be able to find a few other new and mysterious places scattered across the world. We’ll let you find out what secrets they hold by yourself, but we advise that you prepare yourself before venturing forth!



For Hildir’s Quest we’re also looking at some quality of life updates which you might have spotted on social media – namely a way to move items to and from chests in stacks, as well as a way to toggle manual snapping when building, for better precision.


For this month, we want to show off this seaside town that FiaWorkshop built! If you want your creation to be featured, use the hashtag #ValheimBotM on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook. You can view previous builds in this thread on Steam.



May your axes be sharp!
/The Iron Gate team

If you’d like to discuss the content of this post, please visit our Discord, or our forums on Reddit and Steam, or make a comment on social media!

Time for some hotfixes! Aside from what we address in this patch, we are also looking into an issue related to some worlds being reset when playing on Xbox. Additionally, we have a fix for an issue that could cause worlds to be different on Xbox versus PC, which could cause buildings to break. These two issues have been our highest priority and are working as fast as we can to get them fixed and implemented!

An important note here, is that when this is fixed it means that certain worlds on the Xbox version will have terrain changes in small areas of the world. Worst case, if you’ve built a lot in one of these areas, buildings there may break. Unfortunately there is no better solution for this, as the areas need to match with the PC versions for crossplay and all future world generation, and we truly apologise for the trouble this causes some players. Luckily this is something only a small number of players will notice at all. We try our best to ensure that these issues do not happen, but sometimes it’s unavoidable and we are truly sorry for any inconvenience.

Remember that you can use the “Manage Saves” button in the world selection to recover a world if you’ve run into any world issues. And also, if you are having an unplayable game in the latest patch, you can always run the last stable version by changing to the ‘default_old’ branch on Steam.



* Left handed mouse fixed
* Manual saving bug fixed
* Swap Triggers controller option added
* Text & UI fixes
* Performance & various bug fixes


* Manual save no longer causes you to respawn where you saved and can be called to a dedicated server if you are on the admin list
* Left handed mouse should now work correctly again
* Added “Swap Triggers” to control options, to be able to fix a potential issue for PlayStation controllers
* Fixed performance issues in main menu
* Fixed some special characters appearing as squares and symbols should look more like they did before
* Hovertext and text input on signs should now be displayed correctly and can use \t and \n symbols
* Text on signs should now be lit correctly and no lower glow
* Various UI & text fixes that were being displayed incorrectly
* Engine updated to unity version 2020.3.41f1

* Added graphic setting “Balanced Mode” with 40 FPS and 1440p on Series X and 900p on Series S
* Right stick now only controls the character rotation in character screen

Time for another patch with a chunky assortment of fixes! Several bugs have been corrected (both coding bugs and Seeker behaviours) and some Quality of Life improvements have been made, along with some performance optimisations. We have also added a “save” button, so you no longer have to worry about when your last autosave might have been.


* Various fixes for the Mistlands
* Various menu and UI improvements
* Added manual save button
* Various performance optimisations
* Localisation improvements



* Mistlands giant helmet and sword will now properly drop both iron and copper scrap as intended
* Seeker soldier and ticks should now respawn correctly in dungeons, and ticks starred ticks chance increased from 10% to 20% as intended.

* Added Munin to Ribcage locations in Mistlands
* Added saving icon to HUD and delayed the "bad connection icon" when saving
* All game texts have been optimised for better clarity and performance
* Reworked button prompts to a new visual style, added some missing buttons, etc.
* Key hints are now displayed in a horizontal line rather than vertical list and visible in all needed contexts
* Kicked players get a proper message
* Menu selection markers should now be displayed correctly in all languages
* Fixed several focus loss scenarios when using a gamepad
* Haldor’s lines are now translated correctly
* Build menu has been widened to avoid overlapping other interface items
* D-Pad should now be usable in all menus
* Controller and keyboard usage of menus improved
* Skills menu should now work correctly with gamepad and show tooltips correctly
* Mistlands boss should no longer escape her room during rare occasions (changes have been made to how ownership of objects work when transferred to another player; specifically checking the positions)
* Fixed a bug that caused projectiles to sometimes miss even though it obviously should have connected
* Durability bar on item in the inventory and action bar is now only visible if the item has been damaged
* Fixed a visual bug that showed servers that were being pinged as offline
* Thatch roof i-corner 45o can now support itself and will protect underlying beams from rain properly
* Thatch & darkwood roof top 26o middle beam point fixed

* Added alternative controller layout and changed layout to be more readable. Build snapping is a toggle in the alternative layout, and has an icon when active
* Added manual save button to the pause menu that displays last save time
* Crafting menus and quick use bar now have cycling navigation when using gamepad
* You can now use the sticks to move to and from a container inventory from the player inventory directly rather than changing menu focus
* Crafting station is now focused when opening a crafting station
* Language can now be changed without restarting the game
* If a server is unjoinable for version mismatch or other restriction this will shown when attempting to join a game from the server list immediately rather than having to wait for the game to load

* Performance of distant mountain shadows greatly increased, and added a setting to turn off distant shadows completely. (This may increase performance significantly for players with older graphic cards)
* Performance increased while in dungeons
* Performance improved when using many map pins
* Performance improved while using the inventory with many items
* Network stability and performance improvements for crossplay
* Improved cloud save performance on Microsoft Store version.
* Memory optimizations for textures and fonts