Just over five years since its early access launch, Valheim will hit 1.0 on September 9. When that happens, the $20 Viking-themed survival crafting game will cost $30, and a new ice-themed Deep North biome will be added.
Iron Gate has confirmed as much in a new FAQ addressing most of the community’s pertinent questions, among these being: does this spell the end of major content updates? The answer is ambiguous, verging “yes”.
“We will continue to improve the game with bugfixes and quality of life stuff, though for exactly how long the game will continue to receive updates is currently too soon to say,” Iron Gate writes. “Likewise, it is too soon to say whether or not there will be more content added to the game in the future—but as always, we will be sure to announce any news on our channels!”
The biggest sticking point among devout Valheim players—or at least, those who post on Reddit—is that the FAQ rules out an update to the ocean biome in 1.0. Given the possibility that no major content updates will roll out after 1.0, and that the ocean biome update was listed in the initial roadmap, some people are peeved. “Hundreds of km on boat just for the ocean to have three things in it and being empty for the most part,” mourns one user.
1.0 will also add Steam achievements, but if you want them all you’ll probably need to go and do stuff you’ve already done before (like killing Eikthyr, to name an example given by Iron Gate). The new biome will be available to current save files, but it’s recommended you start over.
As for those with sprawling builds that tank performance, the optimisations made to 1.0 won’t necessarily improve matters. “While 1.0 includes optimisations to some areas of the game, large builds in particular would not be highly impacted by these changes,” the FAQ reads.
“We do however plan to continue working on making the game run even smoother after 1.0. Some of the optimisations that will make it into 1.0, however, include decreasing the microstutters that occur when loading new zones in and out of memory, faster saving, and many other minor optimisations here and there.”
Valheim is currently $10 as part of the Steam Summer sale. If you’re even vaguely interested in it, I’d recommend snapping it up before the September price increase.
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