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Wondering what’s coming in the big Valheim Hearth and Home update? Valheim was a huge hit early this year after its early access launch in February and sold millions of copies. The five-person development team, Iron Gate Studios, was certainly taken by surprise, but it’s laid out big plans to fit its big Viking fanbase. Iron Gate is already looking ahead to a Mistlands update following the big Hearth & Home additions for this autumn.
Updates planned for later down the road such as the ‘Cult of the Wolf’ and ‘Ships and the Sea’, certainly have intriguing names, too. But the first major update on the list—Hearth and Home—is what most players are talking about, not least of all because the building aspect of Valheim has become so popular. With various players showing off their opulent bases, it’s hard not to get bitten by the bug and test your own architectural prowess.
Details of the upcoming Valheim update are being kept under wraps, but there are a few tidbits of information out there, such as various teased images. So here’s everything we know about the Valheim Hearth and Home update.
Valheim Hearth and Home update release date: What we know
Iron Gate has pushed back the Hearth and Home update a bit, saying that it will now be expected sometime in the third quarter of 2021.
“We weren’t prepared for such a large influx of players, and this highlighted a thousand new problems and bugs that needed to be fixed urgently,” Iron Gate said in June. “Our priority has been to make the current experience as stable as possible and this has meant new content has taken a backseat. To put it clearly; we haven’t been able to focus all of our resources on Hearth & Home until May.”
For the same reason, Iron Gate is revising its development roadmap as well. Valheim won’t be getting four major updates this year. “The new roadmap will be much smaller, but we’ve made the decision to focus on the big Mistlands update directly after we’re done with Hearth & Home,” the studio says.
Valheim Hearth and Home: Hoarding treasure
One new feature being added in the Hearth and Home update is the ability to show off your riches to other players. You can heap your gold in piles, create coin stacks, and even fill the soon-to-be-added treasure chest with your ill-gotten gains. As you’ll want to make sure no one pilfers your plunder, an iron grate is also being added, so you can create your own treasure hoard and keep it under lock and key.
Valheim Hearth and Home: More building pieces
If you’ve played more than a few minutes of Valheim, you’ll have at least built yourself a rudimentary shelter. And for those of us that focus on base building rather than actual progression, the Hearth and Home update is something worth marking in your calendars.
As the name suggests, it will focus on base building and Törnqvist has confirmed that additional building pieces will be added, as well as “stuff to do in and around the house.” This is fantastic news if you’ve spent more time than you’d like to admit striving to build the perfect base.
While players are already finding some seriously impressive ways of building with what’s already present in Valheim, the addition of extra building pieces is sure to open the flood gates to yet more weird and wonderful player creations.
In the studio’s June update, it revealed darkwood roof pieces and window hatches.
Valheim Hearth and Home: Food re-balancing
Currently, there’s no way to starve in Valheim as your health will never drop below the base value of 25 without damage from an external source. You need to step outside your base at some point, though. When you do, make sure you’re stocked up on food, especially when you’re venturing into tougher biomes. And while there are plenty of meals and meads currently available, the Hearth and Home update will also take a look at the food in Valheim and make additions and improvements to the system.
“We’ve also implemented a new food system that places more importance between boosting health and stamina, making food choices more interesting based on your playstyle,” Iron Gate explained in June. “To this end, we’ve also made some changes to how stamina/health affects your poise in combat. If you want to play a tanky, defensive Viking you should now stock up on health, since this will boost your ability to deflect incoming hits and mitigate damage.”
Iron Gate have mentioned new cooking station extensions such as a spice rack, butcher table, and pots & pans. The studio says there are also ten new recipes, including Eyescream, Shocklate smoothie, and various wolf meats. We’ll also be able to plant and harvest onions!
Valheim Hearth and Home: Food is getting nerfed
Iron Gate recently released a spotlight video on the food changes coming in Hearth & Home, and it looks like some Valheim dishes are getting nerfed. The affected parties include cooked lox meat, blood pudding, turnip stew, and potentially others. The spotlight also revealed some new foods coming to the game, such as black soup, and both boar and wolf jerky.
Valheim Hearth and Home: Teased screenshots
Iron Gate Studios is keeping most details of the update close to its chest, but that hasn’t stopped the developers from teasing us with a few screenshots—along with, well, absolutely no explanation for what they are!
Back in March, we were treated to this image (above) of what appears to be a wooden raven, with a silhouette that looks very similar to the helpful raven Hugin. We know that new building pieces are being added, but it’s unclear from the picture whether the raven is made of wood or if it is actually Hugin, and he’s perched on the thing that we’re actually supposed to be paying attention to.
The next two images were teased in April, and only show a small section of the whole picture. In the first, we can see a pair of boots, with something wooden behind them. Whether it’s a new throne or some other type of furnishing or decoration is anyone’s guess. But then again, maybe our focus should be on the boots? Or the yellowish coloured stuff in the top left? Oh, the suspense!
The last image is even more obscure. It shows a trench dug into the earth—if you look closely, you can see the ‘sparkle’ of the stones that have been mined. But are they stones? Maybe it’s clay which might be introduced as a new building material. Perhaps we should be looking at the trench itself, or the water that appears to be flowing through it.
Valheim Hearth and Home wishlist: The additions I want to see
While there’s no way of knowing exactly what will be added with the Home and Hearth update, it’s hard not to speculate. So here’s a list of a few things we think would benefit the Viking afterlife.
The ability to plant berry bushes and mushrooms
While you can find these foods dotted around different biomes, it would be great if you could plant and harvest these at your base. Sure, it’s easy enough to mark them on your map if you find a particularly good crop, but it can still be a pain if you have to travel to collect them.
Flippable building pieces
Currently you can rotate building pieces when you’re constructing your base. But there have been a few instances where I would have liked to flip the piece upside down to fit in certain gaps.
Separate ‘backpack’ for gear or gear slots
Any armor you currently equip takes up valuable inventory space. Same for weapons and tools. It would be nice to see dedicated gear slots to free up some extra space for more materials or food.
If you can’t wait for the Valheim Hearth and Home update, these Valheim mods may offer some quality of life improvements to your own little slice of the Viking afterlife in the meantime.
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