Summary
- Valheim, a popular indie survival game, is expanding into the world of board games, delighting fans and maintaining strong community support.
- The Valheim board game will mirror the video game experience, featuring survival, crafting, boss battles, and event cards.
- Created by Ole Steiness, the board game includes character boards, action points, fighting bosses, and unique mission objectives.
Despite still being in an early-access form, Valheim has become a darling among indie survival games. Its popularity is so great, in fact, that it's already jumping mediums with an official Valheim board game.
Valheim has been in early access since 2021, but many fans treat it with the respect of a full work. Though rough around the edges and undeniably unfinished, it's far more refined, complete, and content-rich than the early access titles of yesteryear—as well as many games that hit shelves this year. Valheim's Ashlands update kept up this trend, filling out the map with another substantial chunk of content.
Valheim Player Uses Wolf Army to Kill Boss
An ingenious Valheim player uses an army of deadly wolves to destroy one of the most powerful bosses in the popular Survival game.
Valheim Is Getting A Board Game
It's perhaps because Valheim is so well-formed that no-one batted an eye when a board game was announced. While the medium of video games is no stranger to cardboard-and-miniature adaptations, one released during ongoing development could raise eyebrows—especially one with a crowdfunding campaign attached (though such has become the standard for many board game releases, even those attached to large names like Apex Legends). Fortunately, Mood Publishing's Valheim board game has been happily received by fans, reaching a high 20k+ follower count despite being in a pre-campaign stage. Thanks to the dedicated upkeep of Valheim as a game, many fans are ready and willing to support the title in its ancillary forms.
The game is being created by Ole Steiness, a Danish games designer who also worked on the Deep Rock Galactic board game. That title was also worked on by Mood Publishing, the studio that will be publishing Valheim's board game. It was first announced back in June with a quick teaser trailer that housed little info. However, a series of updates have since followed on its Gamefound page, detailing much about the board game's mechanics, core loop, and material content. The 1-4 player experience will mirror Valheim's gameplay, featuring survival, crafting, and boss battles.
How Valheim's Board Game Will Work
Since the game is in a pre-campaign phase, details on the title are subject to change. Luckily, there's a still a great deal of detail currently available. Each player will pick a character to start with, all of which come with a player board—which is where health, stamina, upgrade, skill, and equipment trackers are kept. Players can then start, spawning at the homestead to ready themselves for some classic Valheim gameplay. Each session will give players a mission objective and a unique arrangement of tiles, through which they'll have to explore (in turn order) before time runs out.
Players have three action points per turn, with which they can attack, explore new tiles, cook, craft, gather resources, and more. There are also free actions and special actions, the latter of which will expend stamina. Over the course of a session, players will fight through typical Valheim foes, craft gear, and attain the necessary resources to summon one of five bosses. Just like in its video game equivalent, this board game is based around fighting these Forsaken boss creatures, though fans will also have to deal with other Valheim trappings in the form of event cards. Event cards are drawn after each turn and must be resolved immediately; they could involve raids, enemy spawns, or nothing at all.
Valheim's board game seems typical among such adaptations, but that's certainly a strength. While, again, everything described is subject to change, it so far seems as if the title will mirror its source material to an admirable degree. Its current pre-campaign phase also promises its own rewards; those who follow in the pre-campaign stage are eligible to receive a longboat miniature upon backing the project.
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OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 85 /100 Critics Rec: 83%
- Released
- February 2, 2021
- ESRB
- r
- Developer(s)
- Iron Gate AB
- Publisher(s)
- Coffee Stain Studios
- Engine
- Unity
- Multiplayer
- Online Multiplayer
- Cross-Platform Play
- PC, Xbox One & Xbox Series X|S
WHERE TO PLAY
Valheim is a brutal exploration and survival game for 1-10 players set in a procedurally-generated world inspired by Norse mythology. Craft powerful weapons, construct longhouses, and slay mighty foes to prove yourself to Odin!
EXPLORE THE TENTH WORLD
Explore a world shrouded in mystery. Discover distinct environments with unique enemies to battle, resources to gather and secrets to uncover! Be a viking, sail the open seas in search of lands unknown, and fight bloodthirsty monsters.
BUILD MIGHTY HALLS
Raise viking longhouses and build bases that offer reprieve from the dangers ahead. Customise buildings, both inside and out, with a detailed building system. Progress through building tiers to upgrade, expand and defend your base.
GATHER, CRAFT AND SURVIVE
Struggle to survive as you gather materials and craft weapons, armor, tools, ships, and defenses. Decorate your hearths and sharpen your blades, grow crops and vegetables, prepare food, brew meads and potions, and progress as you defeat more difficult bosses and discover new recipes and blueprints.
- Platform(s)
- Linux, PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S
- Genre(s)
- Sandbox, Survival
- How Long To Beat
- 75 Hours
- X|S Optimized
- Yes
- File Size Xbox Series
- 1 GB (November 2023)
