Survival game Valheim’s first content update — Hearth & Home — is now available and is bringing a whole heaping helping of new stuff to the game. According to Coffee Stain Publishing and developer Iron Gate Studio, Hearth & Home is focused on “enhancing the core base building and survival mechanics” of Valheim.
Players will find new tools for creating longhouses, cooking feasts and more. A new gameplay video (below) gives players their first taste of what to expect in Hearth & Home.
Many of the features and content in the update have already been announced by the development team, some have been kept hidden until now. Including “something dark and mysterious that seems to spread across the plains.”
Valheim Hearth & Home Update
Players will be able to get their hands on a bunch of new Darkwood and stone pieces. “Whether it be Darkwood beams and poles decorated with intricate Viking embellishments, a new Darkwood roof type and ornaments, or a stone throne for those who rule with an iron fist, Valheim’s building system will now offer an expanded selection of pieces to spark players’ imaginations as they build their settlements,” says Iron Gate Studio.
Also included in the update is a highly requested feature from the community. Players are now able to name their pets as well as share maps between players, plant additional tree types and the obliterator extension that can destroy items.
However, the major component of Hearth & Home are the new cooking and building features. “Brand-new cooking extensions from spice racks, butcher tables to pots and pans accompany a larder of new recipes for Vikings to sink their teeth into. Deer, wolf and boar meat, jerky and skewers have all been introduced, alongside muckshakes, onions and onion soup, while players can now cool off after a hard day of adventuring with a tasty eyescream.”
Hearth & Home adds new recipes alongside the reworked system and gives players more choice, improved health and stamina mechanics and the ability to finetune their Viking’s diet.
Henrik Törnqvist, co-founder of Iron Gate said, “As the first major update, we wanted Hearth & Home to truly expand the Valheim experience and make the core gameplay richer and more complex while still adding new content for players to return to and explore. While it’s taken a little longer than anticipated to make sure it’s the quality people have come to expect, we’ve listened to our community every step of the way and with some much-requested features added we’re glad that they can finally get their hands on it.”
Valheim launched into early access on Steam in February 2021 and has so far sold over seven million copies and saw a peak of 500,000 concurrent players; the fifth game in Steam history to do so.
Hearth & Home is available for $28.95 AUD on Steam Early Access.
Full patch notes can be found here.
