Valheim's rise to popularity in early 2021 has been a big surprise to many. The Viking survival RPG seemingly came from nowhere, but Valheim is continually one of the most played games on Steam. One of the aspects of the RPG that is enjoyable is the freedom it provides, and players are already tinkering with the experience to play the game in various ways. One particular streamer thought outside the box by turning it into a permadeath game; one with very high stakes.
Along with being a fun game in it of itself, Valheim is a fun watch on Twitch and other content creator streaming services. Because the nature of the game is so open-ended, the streamer can take the audience on a true journey, so to speak. This is exactly with Quin69 on Twitch did.
Quin was playing with a special set of his own agreed-upon rules that if and when he dies, he would delete his character, delete his world, and donate 1,554 subs. Subs in Twitch cost $5 USD, so that donation would be about a nice $7,770. During his very dangerous and high-stakes run, Quin ran into a pack of angry wolves and was attempting to avoid the incoming damage from his Valheim foes, but he did not survive. The result was the streamer sitting there in utter stunned silence.
There are a lot of things to know about Valheim, but one fact is that the game is not a permadeath one, so this was certainly all a choice from Quin69. Some games are extremely brutal in that once the player dies, they must start over from ground one (imagine old-school arcade machines and placing that quarter in to start fresh). In a grand-scale RPG--where players spend hours and hours building up a character--losing all progress on death seems downright unfair (albeit that would be the reality in the real-world). So many games have permadeath modes, or players choose to go on permadeath runs on their own accord.
A game like Valheim can become and remain popular within the community with moments like this. The game itself, by all accounts, is great; Valheim is selling very well, it is continually a top-played game on Steam, etc. But even outside of the moment-to-moment gameplay, a game can ride on the success of content creators and the community who push it along with mods or silly challenges, like the world following the failings and eventual success of TimTheTatMan in Fall Guys.
Valheim is available now on PC.