Valheim: A Mixed Bag

Warning: incomplete/rambling thoughts.

Valheim is, in my opinion, a good game mired by its developers. The graphics are very stylized and take getting used to but grow on most people quite quickly. Combat is overall slow and a bit boring. Gear progression is unsurprising but fun enough. The biomes really shine, though some absolutely suck. The music and overall ambience are fantastic. Sailing with friends is fun, but doing anything else with them sucks because the netcode makes everything lag when players are near one another, meaning multiplayer is best when you're not playing together. The boss fights at first look cool, but are just annoying. Food is an interesting system but the game relies far too much on it. Fishing sucks. I'm convinced there's some semi-sentient AI baked into the game that makes the wind always against where you want to go. The Meadows and Black Forest are super fun, the Swamp is awful, the Mountains and Plains are fun, the Mistlands is the thing I hate most about this game, and the Ashlands are poorly tuned; I haven't gotten to the Deep North yet. I played in EA and again in 1.0, both solo and with friends. This game has good roots, but poor developer decisions. Worth $20, $30 if you like the genre.