Valheim is a survival game, and no more so than at the very start. But from building shelters, gathering supplies, making your first bed, and keeping warm at night, here are a bunch of tips to stop you succumbing to the world of Valheim.
1. Gather everything
You never know where the next meal (or raspberry) is coming from, so always gather everything you can. Hunt every Neck, pick up every branch, and turn over every stone. Once you get back to your base, you can deposit everything into storage for later use.
2. Watch out for falling trees
When chopping down trees you are likely to crushed if you aren’t looking where the tree is falling. Take particular care on slopes, as the logs will roll downhill, potentially even destroying your Great Hall if you are chopping above it!
3. Marking minerals
You won’t be able to mine copper or other minerals when you first set out. If you are exploring and find an interesting deposit, then mark it on your map for later mining.
4. Marking your Map
How do I mark these interesting mineral deposits? Double-click on your map (press M to bring it up first). You can choose one of four icons to place on the map, and write a short description of what is there (copper, home, mushrooms, skeleton castle – stay away). If you want to remove a marker, right-click on the icon.
5. Upgrade your Workbench
You can add both the chopping block and the tanning rack, close to your workbench, and you will increase the level of tools that you can create or upgrade there. The chopping block and the tanning rack don’t actually do anything else on their own (I know – I was preparing to drape my newly found deer pelts on the rack to dry as well!)
You can then enter the workbench and, assuming you have enough raw materials, you can upgrade your weapons, tools and clothing to level 2 and then level 3, making them all more effective.
6. Repair everything, whenever you can
There is no repair cost at all for your equipment. If you click on your workbench there is a repair button which will choose an item of equipment which is running down and repair it for free. Keep clicking to repair everything. Keep your equipment in good order, and you’ll never have any problems with it.
7. Tame Wild Boars
Wild Boars love mushrooms, as the rune stone says (befriend boars by feeding the roots of the earth). You can find mushrooms in the forested areas, and drop them into a pen with a wild boar in to tame them. It can take some time, and a few mushrooms or berries, but once you have a couple of them tamed they can breed more tame boars, and you can have a supply of leather scraps on tap.
8. Defeat Eikthyr for a Pickaxe
One of the most basic tools, a pickaxe to carve out the earth, and to retrieve metals from her, is only accessible by defeating the first Valheim Boss – Eikthyr. This isn’t a particularly tricky boss to defeat (check our guide) so you should be aiming to do this relatively quickly. Once defeated you get his hard antlers, which can be turned into a pickaxe each, moving you up the tech ladder.
