[2023] Development Blog: Lava Landscapes

A lil somethin somethin: You can find the details for this event on the announcement page here.

Hello again vikings!

As you may have noticed, we took a small break from these monthly updates while the Hildir’s Request update was on the Public Test Branch. Much like with the Mistlands, we felt that it wouldn’t make for too much interesting reading while we were mostly looking at bug fixing and the like. But now Hildir has properly arrived in Valheim and we shall go back to the monthly blog posts!

In case you’ve managed to miss it though, Hildir’s Request features a new merchant who will sell you some new and fancy clothing to wear around your house – after you have helped her with her requests, which entails going after some mini bosses who have laid their claim on some dungeons around the world. The update also features world modifiers to make your game easier or harder, or somewhere in between, so customise away!

While the bugs were dealt with in Hildir’s Request, we have also been continuing to work away at the Ashlands. For example, we’ve been experimenting with the terrain generation to make it so that the Ashlands never border any other biomes other than Ocean. The journey there will be perilous, so you’d better be ready for it before you set sail!



The terrain generation has also been focused on the various levels of elevation in the biome itself. We want it to feel exactly right – not like the large flats of the Plains nor the craggy hills and valleys of the Mistlands – and that requires a lot of iterations. We do believe we’re getting close to the kind of terrain we want now, especially when we get to come upon places like this:



But you’d better be careful around that lava, because it’s going to hurt an awful lot to step in! At least for those who haven’t adapted to the infernal landscape, that is.

It’s not all going to be fire and lava, though – the area is called the Ashlands for a reason! We have been working on getting different areas of the biome to feel distinct as well, with more trees and deep layers of ash closer to the coastline and more lava the further inland you go. Once upon a time the Ashlands was a lush forest full of life, before devastation happened…



And last, we also hope you haven’t missed that we have a speedrun competition going! Set the game to hard mode, kill all the bosses as fast as you can, and record the whole thing for a chance to lay claim to your very own unique viking tankard to celebrate your victory! You can read more about the competition and how to enter here.

Build of the Month
Since we’ve had the blog posts paused for a little bit, we’ll highlight several builds this time around! Take a look at this quaint cabin that HelloHellie made, this intricate tavern by therabbitramen and this twilit inn built by masshun_jp! If you want your creation to be featured, use the hashtag #ValheimBotM on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook. You can view previous builds in this thread on Steam.





Until next time, vikings!

/The Iron Gate team

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