Valheim

Fantasy sandbox with survival elements. You can play alone or with others, exploring the world and gathering resources, finding and plundering tombs, setting up bases, and creating increasingly powerful weapons and armor, while defeating various enemies, monsters, and bosses. The early Scandinavian medieval setting became a strong point of the project.

According to Norse mythology, mortal and divine beings inhabit nine worlds. Humans live in Midgard, while gods like Odin live in Asgard. Valheim is the wild tenth realm, feared even by the gods.

The main character is a Viking, wounded in one of the battles, but not worthy of a place in Valhalla. He would rot in Helheim, but by Odin's command, Valkyries bring dying warriors to Valheim. There, they must earn their place in Valhalla through hard work and victory over terrifying monsters, enemies of Odin, and turn Valheim into a hospitable place.

Unlike Minecraft, Valheim has a narrative divided into the main storyline and additional quests. The player receives instructions and specific objectives, completing which advances the story. Periodically, the raven Huginn visits the player and delivers instructions from Odin.

Focusing solely on survival or construction and ignoring the story won't work. New gameplay features and areas of the world unlock only after killing certain bosses or completing quests.

At the time of early access release, Valheim did not have a large and lengthy storyline; it was added closer to the full release of the game.

Following Viking mythology, Valheim appears as a flat, round, watery world with numerous islands. Around its perimeter is the edge of the world in the form of an endless waterfall. At the start of each new game, a unique map full of scattered islands of different shapes and sizes is created through procedural generation.

The islands are divided into biomes—forests and meadows, swamps, fields, mountains, northern lands, etc., a total of 10. Each biome offers a unique combination of nature, climate, resources, enemies, and useful loot.

There are places with poisonous air or severe frost. Visiting them requires preparation and crafting protective items. The ocean acts as an independent biome filled with dangerous sea creatures. The world is so vast that fully exploring it will take several hundred hours.

At the time of early access, Valheim had almost no unique content; all points of interest (altars, runes, dungeons, fortresses, etc.) were procedurally generated. The bestiary consisted of well-known animals (wolves, deer, boars) as well as fantasy monsters—trolls, goblins, skeletons, walking trees, trolls, dragons, giant sea krakens, and others.Enhanced physics in Valheim takes into account the weight of objects, the strength of structures, collision angles, and air movement. A felled tree can crush the player, simultaneously destroying their base, or break a couple of other trees. A house built without proper supports will collapse. A fire lit inside a house without a chimney will quickly fill it with smoke, causing the character to suffocate.

As in other games of the genre, in Valheim the hero finds himself in a hostile world with bare hands. Initially, he survives in the most primitive way — gathering berries, running around with a club, and living in a hut.

Later, the player explores the world, finds new resources, starts hunting wildlife, and can craft a bow, arrows, axe, and armor. Over time, stone and bone tools are replaced by bronze, and then by iron and noble metal items.

Most items are gathered with the help of a workbench, a crucial gameplay element — only within its influence radius can you build full-fledged structures, and enemy spawns cease. Besides the workbench, there are other crafting stations, such as a smelter for extracting metal and a forge for making weapons and armor.

Crafting stations can also be upgraded, unlocking new crafting possibilities. However, creating advanced weapons and tools requires rare materials, which must be obtained from tough enemies and bosses.

The character also levels up. Progression in Valheim is similar to Skyrim: the more often the player performs an action, like running or spear fighting, the higher the level of that action, meaning they can run longer and faster or deal more damage with a spear. Even running around the hut or hitting a rock counts as practice.

Valheim stands out with the ability to always be hungry, and it won't even lead to death. Food increases health and stamina, the two main character stats, as well as boosts healing speed and enables health regeneration. But you can't eat the same thing all the time; variety is needed.

Valheim offers both single-player and cooperative modes. Difficulty increases with the number of players. Surviving alone is easy, with a friend the difficulty is moderate, and with three or more participants, it becomes high. Up to 10 players can be on one server.

All co-op participants have the same tasks and quests but can distribute them: one tames and breeds animals, another works in the garden, a third fishes, a fourth mines ore, and a fifth transports it to the base.

During daylight, you need to hunt, gather resources, craft necessary items, and fortify the base. At night, you must defend — wild animals and enemies become more aggressive, there will be more of them, and their behavior will change. For instance, wolves will form huge packs, making it difficult to defeat them alone.

Without a fortified base, neither a single player nor a team can manage. There you can safely store all collected resources, crafted tools, weapons, and armor. Building is an important aspect of Valheim; even in early access, players could build outposts and full-fledged fortresses throughout the tenth world.

Valheim also has a "Player vs Player" mode, which is enabled in the server settings. However, balance and mechanics were fine-tuned only in the full version of the game, as player skirmishes are secondary compared to other game features.