After teasing the introduction of a difficulty modifier to its Viking survival game Valheim back in January, developer Iron Gate Studios has now shared a first look at the feature’s progress.
Word that Iron Gate was looking to introduce difficulty settings to Walheim first came as part of a very early glimpse at the game’s upcoming Ashlands biome. And now, three months later, development has reached the point where the studio is able to share more.
As detailed by Jonathan Smars of Iron Gate on Twitter, Valheim’s difficulty settings will take the form of both pre-set and customizable “world modifiers”. Some you’d expect — easy, hard, and hardcore variations are all present and correct, affecting, for example, the difficulty of combat, the frequency of enemy raids on player bases, and items placed on death — but Iron Gate has several Throwing in more unusual presets as well.
Immersive mode, for example, disables portals and the map, while Casual is as close to a peaceful experience as you’re likely to find in Valheim. Here, enemies only attack when provoked, and even then the difficulty of combat is reduced dramatically. Additionally, base raids are disabled, resources are increased, and the player can retain all skills and equipped items upon death.
And finally for presets, there’s Hammer Mode, which retains all the standard difficulty settings, but makes monsters inactive, and – most importantly – makes all buildings free to build, essentially a creative mode. serves as.
If none of those appeal, though, Smars offers to take a look at Valheim’s work-progress customization sliders, which let players set the difficulty for combat, deathmatches, resource rates, and raid rates individually. Can – Also provide check boxes. For portal items, no creation cost, player based events, no map, no portal, and inactive enemies.
Again, there’s a huge amount of flexibility available for those who find Walheim’s current difficulty a bit too much to deal with – although a pop-up shown during Smars’ video notes that the world modifier can be changed when used. Can negatively affect the core experience. Incorrectly, suggesting players stick with the default settings at first.
Smars also notes the modifiers — which can be applied to existing worlds, and not just new games — have yet to be finalized, meaning things are still subject to change. This is certainly promising stuff, but still no word on when the new options might arrive.
Along with Valheim’s new world modifier and its upcoming Ashlands biome (which is still a long way off), Iron Gate previously teased a “little” early access update it’s calling Hildir’s Quest. It introduces a new NPC (the titular Hildir), new clothes, and a new way for players to re-style their character’s existing hair.