Since its launch in early 2021, Valheim has received regular updates to help the game evolve and stay fresh. The Viking-focused survival sandbox title has become wildly popular with fans of the genre. However, Valheim is beginning to approach a problem when it comes to its updates that it may want to fix sooner rather than later.

Back in May, Valheim received the Ashlands update. This upgrade brought a hazardous and volcanic biome to the game that is steeped in fiery danger. This new biome has only made the fabric of the game that much more diverse and enjoyable, and the planned Deep North update is set to expand the game even more with icy terrain. However, the Deep North update could signal the end of potential biome growth, leaving Valheim an opportunity to go back to the drawing board for future in-game content. As one of the longest running and most successful survival sandbox titles in the genre, Minecraft could be a great source of inspiration.

Valheim Has Done All it Can With Its Environments
Since the game's beginnings, Valheim's most substantial updates have almost always focused around the advent of a new biome. The various lands in Valheim offer diverse landscapes for players to explore and survive in, but once the Deep North gets its planned update, there may not be much to do with biomes. The game features pretty much every type of biome imaginable, which leaves developer Iron Gate AB with a fork in the road on whether to continue this land focus or branch out.

This is where Minecraft comes into the picture. Mojang's hit sandbox title features a vast variety of landscapes, but it also features updates that improve other core features, as well. A major type of update that Minecraft embraces is equipment-focused updates. Of course, Valheim's updates offer more additional content than just biome changes, but going bolder with patches and upgrades outside these parameters could help continue the game's growth.

Valheim's Current Biomes

Meadows
Black Forest
Ocean
Swamp
Mountains
Plains
Mistlands
Ashlands
Deep North (unfinished)

The list above is an impressive array of biomes to explore for just one game. However, continuously adding more may also eventually become overwhelming. An even worse possibility is that new biomes begin to just feel like recycled versions of previous areas. Deep North is going to bring the antithesis of Ashlands, and that's great, but there are only so many biome types to experiment with before it begins to feel repetitive.

Valheim has seen solid growth for the past three years. However, there is still plenty of room for Valheim to evolve, and looking past the game's landscapes is a great start. Updates can bring new weapons and enemies to the forefront, and Ashlands did this really well. The only difference that needs to be made in the future is that anything like new enemies, creatures, crafting materials, or weapons needs to be the star of the update and not merely the side features.

Now that the groundwork has been laid to make Valheim's landscapes as diverse as possible, the focus should now be centered on building each biome up into a rich, content-filled area. Adding new biome-centric creatures and enemies on a regular basis can help keep Valheim exciting for a long time. For example, Valheim's Leviathan is a creature that is incredibly mysterious but could be further explored. Addressing and updating the long-running features of each biome while also introducing new tools to make exploration more rich as time goes on could be the key to Valheim going down in survival sandbox history.

Posted: Aug 15, 2024 2:33 pm
Related Forum: PC Gaming Forum

Source: https://gamerant.com/valheim-updates-similar-minecraft-good-why/