Summary
- Valheim's early survival challenges are greater than Minecraft's, forcing players to face stronger foes and endure raids to build power.
- Valheim's comfort and resting system adds utility to decoration, with higher comfort scores providing stamina, health regeneration, and bonus experience to help with surviving.
- Minecraft could benefit from a similar comfort mechanic, encouraging players to decorate and consider better decoration decisions when building bases. Such a system could also bring new combat events and challenges.
Valheim sets up a unique survival challenge out the gate, with a variety of fresh mechanics and an enchanting Norse mythology setting. However, one of Valheim's mechanics in particular would hugely benefit fellow survival title Minecraft, and the mechanic in question is the game's comfort system.
Valheim's early survival challenges are immediately greater than those of Minecraft. Throwing the player into the realm with the burden of fighting the foes of Odin, even the humble boar poses a threat. Players will need to harvest resources over days just to face the stronger foes that lie in the biomes far from spawn—enduring raids and slowly building power. Minecraft plays more into a power fantasy, as the player can find villages and shipwrecks stocked with loot and food while most basic enemies can be thwarted with some strategy. Players have almost indomitable power over their environment.
Valheim's Comfort System Would Work Great In Minecraft
One thing that makes this contrast in design sharp is how each game handles decoration. For instance, Minecraft has perhaps one of the most thorough catalogs of decorative items that a player could ask for. There are dozens of blocks with a near endless range of color and texture matchups possible, not to mention the variety of plants, paintings, frames, and more available. All of this decoration, however, is for vanity (unless those blocks have distinct interactivity). Valheim's comfort and resting system, on the other hand, offers utility to its decor.
How Comfort Works In Valheim
Valheim allows the player to build wondrous things, but its beginning demands survival against some ferocious odds. From the outset, there's no reason to create anything that isn't strictly practical; survival, naturally, comes before vanity. However, the comfort mechanic allows for decoration to have a gameplay value. After the necessities of a house are built, decorations can increase the player's comfort score. The higher this score, the longer the 'Rested' buff, which is gained whilst the player is sheltered. The increased duration of 'Rested' given by a higher comfort score allows for its benefits to last over a prolonged expedition into the wild. These benefits include stamina and health regeneration alongside bonus experience.
This design philosophy extends to other aspects of building. For instance, constructing defenses in Valheim has a distinct purpose. Enemies can damage the player's home and raids will bring foes hurtling to where their spawn point is set. Building defensive structures has a real purpose that is removed from the concerns of PvP.
Minecraft Could Raise The Stakes And Add Utility With Comfort Mechanics
Minecraft is an excellent survival game. Everything coalesces around health and hunger, simple systems that allow for a wide range of challenges and methods of circumvention. Challenging the Nether or sprawling caves can be a real struggle in early play. On the other hand, the player isn't made to make many decisions when building a base. They don't have to worry about a Valheim comfort score or a Terraria NPC system; a hole in the wall with a door is enough for a serviceable base. While this is great for creativity, a system similar to Valheim's comfort score could allow for more considered decisions to be made. If adding decorations—such as 1.2's decorated pots or paintings—inferred vicinity bonuses, it would encourage players to get into decorating if they otherwise don't care about the concept.
In addition, this system would also allow Mojang to add some new challenges. If bases imbue vitality in the player, it could justify more combat events like Minecraft's raids. The more fans decorate, the better equipped they'll be to fight off creatures that come for them directly—maybe even ones that can break blocks. A new survival challenge in this vein would give a whole new generation a chance to experience those veteran memories of waking up in the middle of the night to a zombie breaking down the door.
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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
- File Size Xbox Series
- 1 GB (November 2023)
- Platforms That Support Crossplay
- PC, Xbox One & Xbox Series X|S
- Steam User Rating
- 95%
