Valheim is a Step in the Right Direction for the Survival Genre
Valheim is a Viking-themed survival RPG created by Iron Gate Studio that's currently in early access. Unlike other titles such as ARK or Conan Exiles (which are very PvP-oriented), Valheim chooses to focus mainly on the PvE side of survival, and it does a very good job at it.
While Valheim is not the first survival game focused on PvE (Don't Starve is a good example), its different approach to the progression flow and core mechanics of the genre is a gamble that successfully sets it apart from the other games in the genre.
Core Mechanics
Hunger and Thirst
The one mechanic that almost all survival games have, is the management of hunger and thirst. Some games may only have one of them, but in general, they usually have both. Together with the ability to build in the world, it is THE mechanic that defines the genre.
Valheim grabs the concept of that mechanic, and while still applying it, makes it way more interesting, fun, and useful for the player.
The developers clearly know that at a certain point in a survival game, taking care of food and water becomes nothing more than a trivial meaningless task. It’s a mechanic that usually does not progress with the character, and that's exactly what they fix by doing these two things.
First, they choose to remove the thirst mechanic.
It may seem like it's not a big deal, but having to deal with thirst in a survival game usually means you have to set up your base close to a source of water or find a way to stock up on a lot of it. That means in a way, players are constrained to a certain kind of location at the first stages of gameplay, so removing this mechanic gives players more freedom when choosing where they want to build a base, and it also removes the pain of having to deal with thirst late in the game.
Second, they remove the typical degrading hunger mechanic (i.e. if you don't eat, you die) and replace it with a food mechanic that is directly tied to the amount of health and stamina the character has, successfully making sure the food is tied to the progression of the character itself.
This makes it so that food is always relevant for the character throughout the game, meaning the act of getting food becomes more rewarding as you play instead of becoming a boring task.
Physics
It's not uncommon anymore for a game to have physics built into it, but in the survival genre, it’s not a normal thing to have it be a central feature. While its implementation in Valheim may not look like it is at first, it does impact a lot of the gameplay in very subtle ways.
If a tree falls on top of a character, it will do massive damage and kill them more often than not. If it falls on other trees, it will damage them and make them fall as well, which with a bit of planning can make chopping down trees very fun and fast.
When you build, you need to make sure the building has structural integrity, or else it may end up falling apart and getting destroyed. If you build a campfire inside a house but don't build a chimney, smoke will accumulate to a point where the character will start to take damage from inhaling the smoke.
These are small details that make the game experience much more engaging and could easily be a nuisance if done wrong. Valheim does it very well though, to a point where it's enjoyable to tackle the problems these mechanics pose to the player.
Progression Flow
Technology
Survival games usually tackle the progression flow in one of two ways: either they have a tech tree where you unlock recipes by spending points (like ARK, for example); or by building the appropriate buildings to craft the next tier of tech (like Don’t Starve), where you can almost always see straight away what you can and cannot craft.
Valheim chooses the second approach with a bit of a twist. You need to build the appropriate crafting station to unlock recipes on them, but after that, you also have to upgrade each station to expand the number of recipes at your disposal. The twist is that even after getting those upgrades, what you can craft only becomes visible if you have obtained the materials required to craft them first.
This may seem like a small difference, but not knowing what you need to unlock recipes makes it so that you feel a constant sense of progression, because at any time you may find something new that unlocks a recipe.
Additionally, to make sure that feeling is reinforced, apart from a couple of hints at the start from a raven NPC, Valheim does not give any direct information of where and how to get those new materials. Using this approach forces you to use logic to figure out where those materials could be or how to obtain them. This ends up making the exploring aspect of the game much more rewarding and fulfilling, creating a constant sense of progression.
PvE Content
PvE is the main focus of progression for Valheim, and for an early access title, Valheim has a very good amount of content already. With the various different enemies you can fight, and a good amount of bosses you can challenge, there is no shortage of content for now.
By dividing the map into procedurally-generated islands, it ensures that players will have a unique experience while following the logical order enforced by the game, it also ensures that every bit of technology is useful (for example boats).
More importantly, the progression is very smooth: to improve a character’s skill you just need to do whatever the skill is tied to. For example, if you want to level up the character's ax-wielding skill, you just need to use the ax by chopping trees or fighting enemies. This means you will naturally and gradually improve the skills of everything you use.
Even though you don't know straight away where and how to fight the bosses, just by having bosses, the game gives you some clear milestones to achieve making the PvE content far more enjoyable.
Conclusion
Valheim is clearly a title to watch out for given that it’s already in a great state on an early release build. This makes the $20 entry price well worth it for now, and the value will only go up once future content is released.
Valheim is far from perfect, but for an early release, it’s one of the best I’ve seen so far. I’m very hopeful for the future of Valheim and I hope people try it to see for themselves why it’s such a big step up from its competition.
The new approach to the genre that Valheim takes is surely a welcome change to survival game fans that prefer the PvE aspect, it is for sure a step in the right direction, improving core mechanics and creating a good sense of progression is exactly what was needed for a survival game to shine once more.
