Valheim
You are a slain Viking, and in Valheim you have to prove you are worthy of Valhalla. In the tenth world of Yggdrasil you craft tools, build shelters and summon eight bosses one by one with offerings at their altars. Your only guides are the ravens Hugin and Munin, and they show up rarely.
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It began as a side project. In 2017 Richard Svensson started the game under the working title Fejd, Swedish for feud, and in 2018 he left Pieces Interactive to work on it full time. When Valheim entered early access on 2 February 2021, it had been made by five people.
PC Gamer called it a rare exception among early access games, one that already felt refined, and later named it its Game of the Year 2021.
Early access itself stretched past five years. Version 1.0 arrived on 9 September 2026 with the last biome, the Deep North, and a new ending.
You can play alone or with up to ten people. The game explains very little, but one reviewer liked exactly that: in their view, it builds a community around the game. Players rate it 93% positive across 476,547 reviews, and critics give it 89 on Metacritic. On our Recommended Score Valheim ranks 226 of 4,736 games.
Enjoyed it? Try Raft, where up to ten people survive on a raft in the middle of the ocean, and The Planet Crafter, where a convict reshapes barren planets.
Major updates
Valheim 1.0 Has Arrived! · Sep 2026All 4
System requirements
Minimum GTX 950 · 8 GB RAM · 1 GB✓Steam Deck VerifiedMin & recommended
| Minimum | Recommended | |
|---|---|---|
| OS | Windows 10 or later | Windows 10 or later |
| Processor | 2.6 GHz Quad Core or similar | i5 3GHz or Ryzen 5 3GHz |
| Memory | 8 GB | 16 GB |
| Graphics | GeForce GTX 950 or Radeon HD 7970 | GeForce GTX 1060 or Radeon RX 580 |
| DirectX | 11 | 11 |
| Storage | 1 GB | 1 GB |
From the game’s Steam store page.
