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.
Please leave any feedback you may have in the appropriate channel in our Discord, or in the appropriate forum on our website.
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.

Some minor fixes to the PTB! If all is well, it should soon be moved over to the default branch.

Fixes & Improvements:
* Fixed issue with Steam Dedicated servers not running properly
* Upgraded Unity engine from 2022.3.9f to 2022.3.12f
* Change the default render scale setting to be "Native"
* Cleanup of the WearNTear code
* Fixed particle system indicating build-piece orientation not being visible
* Fixed boat no longer being detected as being underwater anymore
* Localization updated

Hello, vikings!

It’s time for another monthly check-in! As you may have noticed, there is currently a patch out on the Public Test Branch, which we as always invite you to play! It features an engine update – but also some seasonal content like the Jack-O-Turnip and a brand new witch hat!

Since our last blog post, we have also announced the winners of the Trial of Tyr, and we have teased you a little bit about our internal Ashlands playtesting on social media. After that playtesting post, we got a lot of questions about whether or not you will need to start a new world when the Ashlands update is eventually released. The answer to that is that it won’t be strictly necessary to get the new content, but it will be something we strongly recommend in order for you to get the best experience. The same has been true for previous large updates as well, and will most likely be the case for the rest of Valheim’s Early Access period. You can of course still bring your current characters with you into your new worlds!

But now on to the teasers, which we know you are all waiting for! First off, we want to go ahead and show you a small selection of the new weapons you’ll be able to craft in the Ashlands. Pictured below is a greatsword, a regular sword, a mace and yes, dual wielding axes.



We also want to show you this mysterious contraption… It looks a bit like the Obliterator, but it does something quite different. What do you think this might be used for?



We’ve previously shown you a bit of the Ashlands and what they look like where you will first set foot. But let’s also take a new peek at what they’re like further inland, where the lava can dominate pretty large areas! Crossing these lakes of molten rock will be a challenge of its own, we assure you…




Since it’s properly autumn now, we couldn’t not choose this Swamps based stave church by splash_opain for this Build of the Month! Nicely done! If you want your creation to be featured in this section, use the hashtag #ValheimBotM on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook. Due to changes in the tagging system on Facebook and Instagram, please also send us a DM with a link to your entry as well as using the hashtag if you post there! 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!

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.
Please leave any feedback you may have in the appropriate channel in our Discord, or in the appropriate forum on our website.
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.

You have been asking for the jack-o-turnip, and here it is! We have also added a new seasonal item this year, in the form of a very stylish and pointy hat, which we really hope you'll enjoy.

Aside from the seasonal content, we have a couple of fixes for you, and this patch also entails an engine upgrade to Unity 2022. Because of this Unity upgrade, please note that worlds used in this update will not be backwards compatible with earlier versions of the game. Therefore, be extra sure to make backups this time.

Fixes & Improvements:
* Jack-o-turnip enabled. Spooky season!
* New seasonal item: Pointy hat
* Added a new “Render scale” graphics setting that enables the main camera to be rendered at a lower resolution than the viewport and UI
* Improved automatic input switching so that connected gamepads with stick drift no longer take over control when playing with keyboard and mouse
* Optimized code that determines which objects in the world to instantiate, lowering the baseline CPU time by up to 5%
* Optimized structural integrity calculations, massively decreasing CPU time in areas with large builds
* Optimized enemy AI
* Optimized underwater logic
* Re-enabled objects to have more than 255 KVPs of arbitrary data of the same value type (important for some mods)
* Fixed a bug that could cause traps to trigger multiple times in multiplayer depending on how many players were near it
* Engine upgraded to Unity 2022
* Upgraded Steamworks.NET and PlayFab Party libraries to newer versions
* Engine-side optimizations for dedicated servers
* Tweaked boss spawning to prevent them from occasionally getting stuck when spawning
* Fixed a bug that caused clicking sounds when selecting building pieces via controller

Just a small bunch of fixes this time around!

Fixes & Improvements
* Fixed an issue with double dungeon compendium entry, could cause corrupted character save file
* Controller fix: Player has to press the "B" button twice in order to cancel pin naming
* Zooming on the map is now blocked while entering pin name
* Fixed click sounds that kept being played while navigating certain menus

We have a small set of fixes for you to test out today!

Fixes & Improvements
* Fixed an issue with double dungeon compendium entry, could cause corrupted character save file
* Controller fix: Player has to press the "B" button twice in order to cancel pin naming
* Zooming on the map is now blocked while entering pin name
* Fixed click sounds that kept being played while navigating certain menus

The time has come to announce the winners of the very first Valheim speedrun competition – The Trial of Tyr! We're so impressed by everyone who attempted this difficult challenge and we want to thank everyone who gave it a go. But now, without further ado, we present to you our three champions:


With the total playtime of 13 hours, 4 minutes and 7 seconds, the third prize goes to "Mr ADEL". You can watch the run in this YouTube playlist.


The second place is claimed by "ThreadMenace", who completed the run in 10 hours, 52 minutes and 1 second. You can watch the entry on YouTube:




And finally, with a total playtime of only 7 hours, 54 minutes and 22 seconds, the grand victory goes to "Time Traveler" (or 时空旅行人, in the player's native Chinese). You can watch the full run on YouTube:




Because we suspect you might all be a little bit curious about how one manages to kill all of Valheim's bosses in less than eight hours, we have asked Time Traveler some questions about the entry:

Q: Could you please tell us a little bit about yourself? Who are you and how long have you been playing Valheim?

A: Hello guys, I'm Zhengyuan, a Valheim player from China, also known as "the Time Traveler" (时空旅行人), which is the ID I use on Bilibili, a Chinese video site, or 森罗万象 ("the all-inclusive") on Youtube. I primarily post my Valheim streams and guides on Bilibili. I added Valheim to my steam library on February 7 2021, when it was released into Early Access on Steam. My adventure as a viking started there and since then I have spent circa 4500h in Valheim -- almost all of my spare time is dedicated to it. It has become my favourite game ever.

Q: You're pretty active in the community with making guides and videos. What motivates you to speedrun the game and why do you enjoy it?

A: Oh, that's a long story. The first 50 hours I spent in Valheim were really tough. The ores cannot be teleported. I had to retrieve my items by corpse run, not to mention all the skill loss. And some mobs at the moment were so tricky to deal with, like the troll, bonemass, the stone golem... All these mechanisms made Valheim extremely hardcore and challenging. And I was definitely not alone. When Valheim was just released, players from all over the world should have similar experience of struggling that I had. Many would say it was extremely difficult to play Valheim solo, if not impossible. And I did it. After my first solo "completion" playthrough, I began to delve into my research on Valheim, like the items, the mobs, the mechanisms, and so on. I kept wondering how to turn some crisis into triumph efficiently, how to defeat the bosses without taking damage from them, or how to improve the efficiency in my solo gameplay, and had experimental or actual games through numerous characters and world saves.

At some moment, I figured out I could set up temporary bases in the current biome, so as to save time from massive ore transfer. I understood different mobs have different damage resistances, which means it is more efficient to use spears on trolls or hammers on Bonemass to deal massive damage to their weak points. I studied the pattern of enemies and figured out what their flaws are and when they are vulnerable, which indicates when I could dodge and when I could fight back. As I have developed some useful survival techniques and accumulated some combat experience, finally I could complete Valheim  without any death, or 一命通关, which means one-life completion in Chinese. At that moment I had played Valheim for circa 300 hours.

Then I started posting my gameplay videos on Bilibili to share my gaming experience with my viewers. In China I am thought to be the first player to complete Valheim with one life, and have received some recognition and encouragement from the community. I am very grateful to that, and motivated to further refine my gameplay. Therefore, after my "one-life completion", I have achieved "one-life speedruns", breaking my own records, and focusing on both not dying and completing the game as fast as possible. As such, my videos gradually evolved into something about hardcore combat, extreme challenges, and breaking limits.Through my speedrun recordings, I want my viewers to understand and master my skills from a first-person perspective, so that they can improve themselves and have better combat in Valheim. I feel a great sense of accomplishment, willing to put a lot of passion into one-life speedrun. So I continuously challenge myself, surpass myself, and the contest is a great opportunity for me to prove all of it.

Q: You managed to complete the game in under eight hours. How did you prepare for it? How many times did you attempt it before you were satisfied with your final submission?

A: My previous answer explains a lot. I have some succeeded Valheim one-life speedruns before, and the trial of Tyr is also a one-life speedrun contest. Though it seems like I don't have to do something special to prepare for the trial, which is just something I have done before, there's still something significantly different. I regularly play Valheim "unseeded". The map is always randomized, so I won't depend on something too lucky or RNG-dependent, which means the merchant is not the guy I would seek, some fancy equipment is not the thing I would craft, in order that the most parts of gameplay are under control.

However, the trial of Tyr is seeded, every contestant can scout the fixed world in advance, so I reconsider the importance of Haldor and the Frostner in this trial. The Frostner is insane, available in mid-game, but one can even use it in the Mistlands, so it is what I would happily have on my hands in this trial, thanks to Haldor. Since the map is seeded, the route of progression can be well determined, like where to sail, which dungeons to sneak into. For example, I already know the locations of the Moder and the silver veins, so I can finish the Moder and the silver mining on the Mountain in less than a hour. And that's why 6 anti-frost mead for me is enough, and I don't necessarily need anti-frost capes when I'm on the Mountain.

I have submitted three complete runs in the trial, which were finished in 11h31m, 8h07m and 7h54m, respectively. However I have circa 15 actual attempts. A few of them obviously ended due to deaths, and others mainly because the route I chose was too suboptimal, some result are not expected, or so on. It is fair enough though, without errors the "trial" won't be a trial.

Q: Which part of the run was the most challenging? Was it a specific boss fight, or another tricky situation?

A: Always the Mountain, to be honest. The harsh terrain (similar to but not easier than the Mistlands), the blizzards to disrupt the player's vision and hearing, the starred wolves at night... It is always the toughest part. After we can set the game's difficulty, every mob can be quicker and tougher, and I just find out one single wolf bite is mostly fatal in hard or hardcore mode, not to mention that they are quick enough to have another. Moreover, I personally don't use bows, so I basically must not fail to retrieve my spear each time I aimed to the drakes. Every mistake can be a point of no return. Although the Mountain is challenging, it is also beautiful, solemn, full of dangers, which is intensely immersive. Each time I succeed in the Mountain calmly and efficiently I believe my Viking's skills are checked again.

Q: We noticed you only use the spear and never a bow, why is that?

A: The reason I fight with a spear is mostly for efficiency. The key to a speedrun is efficiency: cost-effectiveness of food, armours, and weapons chosen. The difficulty of using bows is lower compared to spears. It works well against a few flying units in the game, especially the drakes. Very error-tolerant. However, they are more expensive to craft. Also the skill of bow levels up slowly. Spears, on the other hand, deal high damage with low crafting cost. They also have the potential of fighting against flying units. The skill of spears levels up quickly, which is more important because it is much easier to have a high level of spear, making it excellent for speedrunning.

However, it is demanding and difficult for many to master their spears, since the trajectory should be accurately calculated. Additionally, you have to reach and pick up the spear after throwing it, which is error-prone because after the throwing the spear might be lost forever. In general the spear is high risk, high reward. I always choose the spear as my "flying unit solution", because I have achieved high throwing accuracy and I always believe in my accumulated skills from thousands of hours of gameplay. Therefore, for me, using spears instead of bows in speedrun is the best option.

Q: How did you come up with the cart technique you used to rob the dvergr in the Mistlands? [06:48:54]

A: After the Mistlands update, I have started my research on everything from there. When I tried to deal with the dvergr and their settlements, I found out if the dvergr mages become hostile, their ice or fire magic can easily overwhelm the player at the current progression, based on its high attack frequency and high damage. As usual there are more than four dvergr in one settlement, so the mage should be included in most cases. Therefore I thought it might not be the intended way to fight against dvergr and rob them by brute force. Although getting "help" from the spawned seekers is an option, waiting for the seekers and dvergr consuming each other is slow, and the player would play a rather passive role, which is not a very effective solution in speedrun.

At the moment I have noticed the cart, which can bypass the ward in the dvergr settlement and nullify it by dealing "neutral" damage, without making the dvergr hostile. After the ward is destroyed this way, the dvergr will simply give up protecting their settlement, and the player can get the loot from there. Therefore I came up with the idea of using a cart to play pranks on the dvergr.

Just a small hotfix!

Patch notes:

* Fixed an issue that caused languages to not be displayed properly while changing language in-game
* Fixed character limit in chat window

A chunky set of fixes are coming your way in today's patch! We've got snap point adjustments, mini-boss fixes, UI corrections, and more! It also includes an update to dedicated servers, where you will now properly be able to use world modifiers there. See the dedicated server manual for further instructions.


Fixes & improvements:
* New build piece: blue standing brazier
* Midsummer pole & Midsummer crown recipes have been disabled (it’s officially autumn!)
* World modifiers and presets can now be set to dedicated servers using parameters in the startup batfile (see manual) or using the console as an admin
* Updated dedicated server manual to include information on setting world modifiers
* Fixed modifier summary being displayed incorrectly after choosing the casual preset
* Added player list to pause menu
* Several more console commands are now available for admins: setworldpreset, resetworldkeys, setworldmodifier, players, setkey, removekey, resetkeys, listkeys (displays list on dedicated server), sleep, skiptime, restartparty and genloc (takes time - may cause disconnects).
* Added -resetmodifiers startup parameter to dedicated servers
* Added -resetknownitems non-cheat command for resetting items, recipes, and stations
* Updated Haldor music to a new extended track
* Resource scaling fixes for dragon egg, fishing pole and skeleton chest
* Disabled a hugin hint spreading disinformation about Hildir
* Haldor and Hildir dialogue lines will be displayed a bit longer to make them easier to read
* You will no longer switch between snapping points while having the console or chat open
* Building mode won’t be visible while dying when playing with the modifier that keeps equipped items
* Fixed snap points naming for hot tub, oven and removed one excess snap point for barberstation
* Changing alternative snapping mode, zooming in or pressing some gamepad buttons will cancel build piece removal to prevent unintentional behaviour
* Darkwood beam snap point naming matched with other beams
* Changed some snap points on wood gate and darkwood gate
* Black marble bench and table no longer take rain damage
* Fix crafting station only updating its extensions for the first time after the update interval has passed
* Fix off-by-one error that caused build range to be +4m larger than intended and made the build range preview inaccurate.
* You can now activate the guardian power again when using the hammer, hoe & cultivator
* Starred fenring cultist can no longer drop multiple trophies
* Fenring cultist in events can no longer spawn multiple trophies
* Increased crafting station radius should now block spawn area and stop items from despawning correctly
* Stopped some pickables from scaling above max stack with resource rate modifiers
* Fixed an issue where spear is thrown in the wrong direction
* Mobs spawned by bosses will now aggro the player even when playing with the passive mobs modifier since the boss already was aggroed
* Reduced HP on mini-bosses spawned during Hildir events by 50%
* Brenna is now more resistant against knockbacks
* Ballista updated to accept trophies from the Hildir’s Request bosses
* Fixed rare crash while respawning in an area at the same time as monster dies in multiplayer
* Fixed issue with the Elder and Moder triggering incorrectly when using player based events
* World modifier player-based raid fix: Fixed issue with boss event conditions not updating until re-logging
* Item tooltip will be displayed when hovering while dragging another item
* Fixed a bug where the item tooltip overlay could show up over compendium menu
* Replaced all texts fields to be clearer and more optimised
* Replaced all text input fields with new component to work on all platforms
* World modifier tooltip has background now
* Fixes to vegetation shader
* Added click sounds for ingame UI
* Fixed keyhint for adding a server
* Added some missing keyhints
* Player position is saved on manual save
* Clicking outside map pin input closes input field now
* Zooming on the map now closes the pin input window

Xbox:
* Added auto-run toggle to accessibility settings on Xbox
* Opening cheat console no longer hides UI
* Changing snapping doesn’t make you fly down anymore
* Chat no longer opens when opening info panel
* Opening settings for the first time no longer freezes the game
* Camera is now locked when placing a map pin
* Using a vegvisir with a controller no longer pings
* Fixed occasional Xbox crash when another player died close to the host

A couple of additional fixes to the PTB today, including some bug fixes to the map and to the barber station!

Fixes & Improvements
* The map no longer closes when typing the bound map key
* Zooming on the map now closes the pin input window
* Added -resetmodifiers startup parameter to dedicated servers
* Added -resetknownitems non-cheat command for resetting items, recipes, and stations
* Midsummer pole & Midsummer crown recipes have been disabled (it’s officially autumn!)
* Fix off-by-one error that caused build range to be +4m larger than intended and made the build range preview inaccurate.
* Barber station sitting position fixed
* Multiple players can no longer use the barber station at the same time
* World modifier player-based raid fix: Fixed issue with boss event conditions not updating until re-logging
* Fix start menu fadeout missing “Loading…” text
* Fixed an issue where spear is thrown in the wrong direction
* Fixed occasional Xbox crash when another player died close to the host

Well met, travellers!

Summer has reached its end, but the Ashlands remain hot as ever. As you might have seen on social media a couple of weeks ago, we shared another piece of concept art – this time a light armour design. That brings us up to three separate armour sets for the Ashlands, which means there should hopefully be something you’ll like regardless of your playstyle!

Last time we focused a lot on the landscape and terrain – and we’ve shown off another landscape image on social media since then too – so this time we figured we’d take another look at the Ashlands’ inhabitants instead. Like we have said many times already, game development is an iterative process and things often change over time. For example, we have ended up giving a new look to the Bonemaw Serpent, which lives in the seas surrounding the biome. Keep an eye out for those sharp spikes when you’re sailing!



We also felt that there was a type of enemy lacking. Oftentimes when we need inspiration we look back at the Black Forest, and this time was no different. By borrowing some aspects from the greydwarfs we have added this subcategory of Charred, which currently make up for quite a large portion of the Ashlands population:



We’re also of course filling out the landscape with various kinds of structures. You know by now that Valheim carries plenty of traces of old civilisations, and the Ashlands will be no exception. And even while most of the biome will be a fiery wasteland, the old ruins will still have kept a thing or two intact. We’ll let you discover for yourselves what can be found there, so for now we’ll just show you the Blender version of what they can look like:



With the submissions for our Trial of Tyr closing last week, we would like to thank and commend everyone who managed to complete the game on hard mode! We’re all very impressed with how fast some of you really managed to get through the game, and we will reveal the winners shortly!


For this month we want to show off the sea base built by CapCrumbsGaming, well done! If you want your creation to be featured in this section, use the hashtag #ValheimBotM on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook. Due to changes in the tagging system on Facebook and Instagram, please also send us a DM with a link to your entry as well as using the hashtag if you post there! 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!