Valheim is a survival game based on Norse mythology, with fantastic natural exploration and an intuitive building system that lets players create the longhouses of their dreams. Iron Gate Studios' title is an ambitious project that was put together by a five-person team part-time, and it owes much of its success to the fact that it quickly gained hype from the gaming community.
Even long after the game's release, players are continually finding new features and discovering new methods for progressing through the game. As the game doesn't outright explain everything that players can do from the start, there are many lesser-known features, secrets, and tactics most players don't utilize often.
Updated April 6, 2023 by Joe Grantham: There have been many updates to Valheim since its release back in February 2021, including Hearth & Home as well as the Mistlands update, which fleshed out the entire Mistlands biome.
These updates along with the smaller patches mean that more awesome things are constantly being added to the game, and intended or not, these new features are often taken further than first imagined, by creative players. The game has also been released on Xbox allowing a new wave of adventures to explore the world of Valheim and discover all its secrets.
15 Use Large Enemies And Bosses To Farm Or Mine
Chopping down trees or mining ores can take a long time, especially if players have low-level axes or pickaxes in the early stages of the game. Thankfully there is a faster, albeit more dangerous, way to farm these vital resources.
Large enemies such as Trolls and Stone Golems will deal massive damage with their attacks, smashing up any trees or rocks in their way. With this in mind, players can bait out their attacks, dodging at the last second. Bosses can also be used to farm, but only in the area they spawn.
14 Hatch Chickens
As traditional animals such as Boars and Deer are found in the early game and Chickens have only been added with the Mistlands Update, many players won't even know of their existence or know how to get them.
After beating Yagluth, Eggs can be bought from Haldor for 1500 coins. They can then be placed near a fire for 30 minutes to hatch a chicken. Alternatively, tamed Hens can also produce Eggs when fed the correct food, mostly seeds.
13 Style Those Craftables
The developers of Valheim don't expect everyone to look the same. To encourage customization and creativity, they built a system that allows players to style some of their craftable gear.
Many of the game's shields have an extra "Style" option just below the item's name in the workbench. By clicking this, players can open up a menu with a few different color options, allowing them to stand out from the crowd. Some of the game's other armor pieces have this option as well.
12 Place A Campfire In Dungeons To Get The Rested Bonus
Valheim's dungeons are packed full of creatures thirsty for blood. The player should take every advantage possible, especially when just starting a new world and lacking the best gear. To that end, Rested is a Valheim status effect that will give players a significant edge in dungeon crawls.
Once inside the dungeon, the player can place a campfire in the first room and rest there for 20 seconds to receive the Rested buff. This provides +50% health regen and +100% stamina regen. It even adds a +50% experience gain to skills, even though this is not displayed in the player's list of active effects.
11 Place Floating Text
For players looking for an aesthetic boost to their builds, it is possible to place floating text to label portals or chests. By placing extra white space before or after the text on a sign, players can push the letters off the edge of the sign, leaving them to float in front of whatever is being labeled.
Additionally, for those who want to be especially organized, signs support some basic HTML (offering features like adjusting the color and font size of the lettering), allowing for color-coded labeling.
10 Get Extra Support With Iron Structures
Though iron can be time-consuming to collect, it is worth the effort when planning a large build. Iron is an incredibly sturdy material for building large structures in Valheim, but it doesn't always look the best. Luckily, players can cover iron support structures in other materials that may be more appealing to the eye.
Iron gates can be placed inside stone walls and wood-iron poles and beams can be covered with their wooden counterparts. This allows players to build aesthetically pleasing structures, with all the structural support that comes from iron building blocks. Players have used these strategies to build huge castles and forts that would have come tumbling down otherwise.
9 Automate Wood And Stone Production
Two of the most basic resources, wood and stone, are used very regularly for crafting and building structures in Valheim. Fortunately, players can utilize the Greydwarf spawner found in the Black Forest, as well as wolves, to automatically farm these resources, freeing a lot of time to focus on other tasks.
To start, players must simply find a Greydwarf spawner and dig a hole underneath it. The next step is to find some wolves and tame them with raw meat. Finally, players merely fill the hole with the tamed wolves and let them do the work. It's also helpful to toss some extra raw meat in with them so they continue to breed. The wolves will kill the Greydwarves as they spawn, leaving the resources lying around to be collected whenever it's convenient. There's one important thing to bear in mind, though: players should make sure to build a wall around the pit so trolls don't wander in.
8 Use The Stagbreaker As An Ore Detector
One of the first weapons players can craft in Valheim is the Stagbreaker. Under typical circumstances, the Stagbreaker is used as an AOE attack weapon, but it can also be used to detect ore underground.
When using Stagbreaker, or its later game counterpart, the Iron Sledge, players can hit the ground and deal damage to the surrounding area. However, when above an ore deposit, the game will display "TOO HARD" rather than a damage number. From there, fans can use a pickaxe to mine down to the ore. This is a great early-game alternative to using the wishbone, which is only acquired by defeating the third boss, Bonemass.
7 Ride Deathsquitos
Deathsquitos are nasty little insects found in the Plains, one of Valheim's hardest biomes. They can kill unprepared and/or ill-equipped players quite quickly, dealing 70 damage per attack. They are also very hard to outrun, though thankfully they at least only have 10 health, making them easy to kill for those with good bow aim.
For those brave enough to get close, it is also possible to hop on top of a Deathsquito to go for a ride high in the sky. Scary, sure, but once mastered this technique can be used to get up to high places players couldn't otherwise reach.
6 Make Secret Rooms With Banners And Rugs
Those familiar with Minecraft will know that players can build secret rooms using paintings that can be passed through in that title. Similarly, Valheim players can create secret rooms out of banners, by hanging them over an opening in the wall. They can then walk right through the banner.
Rugs can also be placed over a hole in the floor. Any player who walks over the rug will instead fall through. This can be useful to create secret tunnels around a base, or a secret vault to hide valuables from thieving players.
5 Repel Greydwarves With Fire
Greydwarves are some of the most common and annoying foes players will find in Valheim. They are found most commonly in the safer biomes where players tend to build their main bases. Luckily, there is an easy way to keep them away from structures: fire. They hate it!
Building campfires near a workspace or carrying a torch while traveling will keep Greydwarves away (though they may still throw rocks from a distance out of spite). Those utilizing this handy method, however, need to be careful not to let the fires die. Torches in particular will not last long, especially when used to hit enemies.
4 Go Grave Robbing
While wandering in Valheim, players may notice oblong rings of stones in the shape of a boat. Some less experienced players may just walk right on past, but those who know better will recognize these sites as Viking graveyards. Nobody should pass by without stopping when they spot one, as they are worth investigating.
If dug out, the space within the stone border will contain a chest with some loot in it. Players will also collect a lot of bone fragments while digging.
3 Build A Poisonous Moat With Pufferfish
As swarms of enemies can attack one's base in Valheim, it is usually a good idea to use the hoe to create natural defenses, either high walls or deep moats.
An even more advanced trick though is to catch some poisonous Pufferfish and place them in Hot Tubs at the bottom of the moat. Any enemies trapped in the moat will slowly die of poison damage. As Hot Tubs require rare Tar and Iron, however, this is by no means a cheap form of defense.
2 Build In Creative Mode
When building in Valheim, players will constantly find themselves limited by their resources, especially when creating masterpieces of epic proportions. Thankfully for PC players who wish to be free of any restraints, there is always the option to enter Creative Mode where items can be placed without the required resources.
To enter Creative Mode, players will first need to go to the Launch Options on the Properties of Valheim in Steam and type '-console'. Then, when the player has loaded the world they wish to build in, they can press F5 and type in 'devcommands'. Now any cheat code will work, including 'debugmode'. With this enabled, they can press B to build without restrictions. Flying with Z can also help when building up high.
1 Slide Down A Mountain In A Boat
Most Valheim players don't know that it is possible to press Shift to build a boat such as the Longship on land rather than on the water. This option can be used to add boats as an aesthetic centerpiece in buildings.
However, an even better use of this secret is to place the Longship at the top of a steep mountain, climb in, and experience the sheer joy of sliding down a mountainside in a boat. As fun as this may be, it is also the fastest way to escape danger in the mountains.
Valheim is available on PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.