We’ve finally got a look at the Valheim difficulty options thanks to Viking co-op survival game studio Iron Gate, as developer Jonathan Smårs has shown off an in-progress look at all the choices you can make, including some in-depth sliders and toggles to really refine your experience.
Iron Gate has already teased vehicle mechanics for Valheim, but now shares details on new difficulty options expected to arrive as well.
“Are you ready for hardcore mode in Valheim, or do you prefer something more chill?” Smårs says, before sharing video footage of the difficulty options and hardcore mode menus coming to Valheim. Do note that Smårs says the “actual settings are not final,” so while we’ll discuss what was shown, it could change ahead of proper implementation.
From what we can see in Smårs’ video, it’s recommended that you play your first Valheim run without these settings, as they can “disrupt and ruin your Valheim experience if used incorrectly.”
There are plenty of world modifiers, from easy, casual, hard, hardcore, hammer mode, and immersive difficulty choices. Hammer mode will let you “build all buildings for free” while having no raids on your base and having no monsters attack you – think Minecraft creative but for Valheim instead.
Apart from broad difficulty settings it also looks like you’ll be able to engage with more specific sliders on things like combat, resource and raid rates, and the death punishments, too. Each selected difficulty has these sliders and options already chosen by Iron Gate, with players able to shift them how they please.
You can expect difficulty settings in the Valheim Hildir’s quest update, which is set to precede the colossal Ashlands update at some point in the future, although neither Hildur or Ashlands have a release date yet following the Valheim Mistlands update.
“We’re trying out a hard mode and an easy mode,” Iron Gate said previously on the difficulty options, “but also a casual mode where you won’t lose gear upon death.
“The normal mode will still always be the best-balanced version of the game, but we hope adding more ways to play can both provide a challenge to experienced players and open the game up to players who would rather take a calm and relaxed approach.”
Remember that the settings we’ve seen and broken down may not be exactly what appears in the final release of the Valheim Hildir update according to Smårs, but I bet we’ll see something similar at least.
While you wait for the difficulty options the best Valheim mods are sure to keep you busy with the great co-op game. You can also enhance your playtime with a breakdown of the Valheim console commands and cheats instead.
