It's much more difficult to anticipate gaming trends than stock market swings. The over-saturated survival simulation game market was gradually following the same path taken by WWII shooters fifteen years before. There were just too many games available, which led to a great deal of tiredness with the survivalism simulation. With the exception of a handful of exceptional instances, almost every new game was weighed down by intense déjà vu, which negatively impacted the whole experience. That is, what we believed. Abruptly, a new survival game emerged that bore visual and conceptual similarities to ten or more existing games, and it quickly became popular, selling out of stores like an MSRP-priced GeForce RTX 3080. In the first week of the early access launch, Valheim sold over a million copies, making it the top-selling game on Steam.

The cheap price of 19,99 USD cannot be the only reason, and we venture that familiarity had a more important role. Valheim has the inherent allure of Conan Exiles, whose player base surely made a substantial contribution to those first sales. The basic idea of both games is the same: you assume the role of an abandoned warrior sent to an unidentified place where you must eke out an existence with the resources at hand. Soon, though, as you set out on the long, arduous path to metal weapons and armor and unknown wonders beyond the first forested plains, everything will fall into place. You'll struggle with the wooden branch and stone ax, eat berries, and try to catch that elusive deer.

You take on the role of a freshly killed Viking warrior in Valheim, who has been sentenced to the Northmen's purgatory. You will need to do a few essential duties for good ol' all-father Odin before you may ascend into Valhalla. Huginn, his rabid companion, will serve as an official spokesperson and instructive assistance distributor. He will assist you in getting settled in and tell you that there is a five-pronged obstacle—that is, five bosses that must be killed in order to establish your value to Old Grimnir—that stands in the way of the everlasting feast in the big hall. Of course, stag-spirit Eikthyr is the strongest of them all, and you have little hope of defeating her, naked and pitiful as you are at first. Although you have to grind a lot, it is the main reason you purchased the game in the first place.

The world of Valheim doesn't first seem to be any kind of Limbo for the cursed. Rather, the feeling of a heavenly refuge is evoked by the rolling, wooded grassland that is illuminated by the noon sun. The only time the forest's snarl becomes scary is at night, when the light of the pale moon shines on it. As with other survival games, you'll hammer out the basics at first, choose a great location for the hut and utilities, hunt for meat and leather, and then explore more and farther as the days pass. Progress is gradual, consistent, and much the same as in games like Conan Exiles. The first two biomes' worth of mobs are not too difficult to defeat, but as you gain strength, their quantity, frequency of spawning, and level will increase to correspond with your advancement. This brought to mind the Elder Scrolls games, namely Oblivion.

Another element reminiscent of the original Bethesda games is the leveling system. A person may level up individual talents like archery, running, swimming, and utilizing axes or spears "organically" by just using them. It should go without saying that leveling moves rather quickly at first before stuttering to a stop. Death removes a large portion of your previously earned levels and imposes a heavy XP penalty. A little issue at initially, a big hassle later on in the game. Answer? Have guts and live!

Fortunately, because you choose to battle the mobs, it will take a lot of incompetence for you to lose. You can always run away from them since you can outrun most of them. But it's a different thing with bosses. The first beast can be easily defeated by a warrior with the right equipment, but each one after that is exponentially more hazardous. Every boss has a unique biome and certain summoning conditions, which sometimes call for some cunning (if you run into trouble, there are lots of tutorials available, so don't hesitate to refer to them!). Every biome has a prevailing theme, and as conditions progressively get more hostile, the stakes progressively rise.

You may play Valheim alone or with other people, on a private server or one that is public. Later on, when the enormous material cost of massive constructions compels you to take part in the great, amusing giga-grind, help will come in handy. Later bosses are also very simpler to defeat in groups of two or more people. The game's maps are quite large, and because there are no horses, you'll have to dash frantically across them in order to find portals. Since portals are quite inexpensive to create, you can save a ton of exploring time by placing them wherever you go.

Despite being a new game that is still nascent, unpolished, and sometimes awkward, Valhaim has a lot of potential. Its unique visual design blends contemporary 3D effects and landscape with low-poly beauty up close. That much is certain: you won't confuse it with anything else. A plan for 2021 was provided by the developers, indicating that the final version is still quite some time off. However, any true enthusiast of survival games understands that the true value of it all is in the journey rather than the end point.