While plenty of wooden creations are possible in Valheim, the game's stone building list falls short by comparison. Valheim was released in February 2021 and has caught the attention of millions of players, as its mix of survival and building mechanics allows people to gather materials and create their own homes, bases, and equipment in a compelling loop.
Since the game's Early Access launch, Valheim developer Iron Gate Studio has brought multiple updates to the game world. One of the more extensive updates was Hearth and Home, which introduced new crafting stations and building options. However, the stone building options remain limited, which should be addressed in the future.
Expanding Valheim's Stone Building Options
Aside from stone foundations, a few stone wall options, and a stone staircase, Valheim doesn't offer many chances to create using stone in its building tab. Despite there being 90 slots to fill in this menu, just over 70 designs are currently being used. Of these, just seven are stone-related building items. While players have created some impressive stone structures in Valheim with this small sampling, there are a few ways that the developer can improve its offerings.
- Personal Runestones
Valheim's different biomes all feature Runestones that provide different lore messages. These large stones feature red runes on their cleaned side, which presents a great opportunity for player customization. Instead of having the created stones feature lore, Iron Gate Studio could add the ability to type messages that will appear when others interact with these Runestones. While there are already signs in the game, this would add a new way to add to a player's world that fits its Viking themes.
- Stone roofing
Stone shingles could add an interesting new look to Valheim's structures. While there are already shingle roofing options, adding a new flat, stone shingle would give players more options when building their ideal base. This piece of building material could also have a unique place in the building system in Valheim by requiring extra support for its material weight.
- Stone Defense
At the moment, players looking to add some passive damaging structures to their base only have sharp stakes. Adding in a stone version of the Sharp Stakes would fulfill both gaps, but Iron Gate Studio could go even further. To add another layer to a player's base defense in Valheim, they could include a ready-built moat section made of stone.
Including More Furniture Options in Valheim
The furniture section of Valheim is surprisingly lacking in items that require stone. In fact, only one piece of furniture currently requires a Stonecutter to be built: the Stone Throne. With the same available amount of overall slots, there are just over 40 furniture options in the game, with a fourth of these being different banners. There is room for improvement here, and just a few stone furniture items would make a difference for those Valheim players that have unlocked stone buildings.
- Stone Sculptures
Iron Gate Studio should consider adding a few different stone sculptures for decoration. Even if the game provided one design in different sizes, it would be an improvement on the current situation. These items could take inspiration from the wooden Ward item that is already available in Valheim.
- Stone Tables and Chairs
While there are a few options for players looking to create tables and chairs out of wood, this isn't a possibility for those looking to create a stone dining room. These could mix metal into their designs, or even wood to make them more interesting to the eye.
- Gravestones
When players die in Valheim, a tombstone will appear where it happened. This acts as a storage vessel for all the items that players had on their person at the time. For those looking to remember their previous lives and foolish deaths, it would be great to have an option to create extras out of stone. Gravestones in a player's base could even be used to pay tribute to a player's pets.
Valheim is available now for PC, and releases in early 2023 for Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S.