OPINION: An introspective on Valheim’s explosive player count

By ETHAN BERMAN
Staff Writer

Valheim’s chaotic eruption in player count over the last two months has led to an increase from the first 10,000 players on release to over 5 million players and counting at the end of March.
Illustration by Ian D. Loomis | Washtenaw Voice

Valheim, a first-time project developed by Iron Gate AB and released by Coffee Stain Publishing, is an excellent example of a game done right. It went from one million players during Feb. to over five million and rising at the end of March.

That’s more than a 500 percent increase in players in about two months.

The wildest aspect about the massive influx of players is the sustained 96 percent positive rating from over 180,000 reviewers on the Steam store – and the game is still in early access.

Chance Davis, a student at WCC and avid gamer, speculates that the massive influx of players is due to the game’s general hype and the proceeding ‘boom’ shortly after launch.

“I think it’s gotten really big because people love games where you can just sort of get lost in them. It’s basically a hybrid between ARK’s [Survival Evolved] general idea and Skyrim’s lore, as well as a little bit of its aesthetic.”

It doesn’t really surprise him because games like Valheim have been picking up speed for the last few years.

“I’ve seen these indie games on the side where the creators were like, ‘we could do this, we could make a game where you start with nothing.’

“A lot of people do it, and it doesn’t end very well, because it’s hard to do properly – but when you do it properly, and you find a formula – I mean, Valheim definitely found a formula – the game can find its niche and stick to it very well,” Davis said.

Valheim features an open-world, Viking-themed, survival, crafting, and RPG aspect with a wide variety of combat situations that players can enjoy with up to nine others on their own server.

The game’s environmental design comes loaded with unique graphics reminiscent of early PlayStation that complement the setting, giving players an authentic, old-school Viking vibe.

On top of this, the game has an easily achievable minimum-spec requirement for maximum graphic performance.

With hundreds of hours of gameplay available in early access alone, there is more content than many other games in the same development stage, including ones made by more prominent developers.

Valheim is only growing more popular with an increasing number of daily positive reviewers, reaching an average of more than 4,500 since release.

The player base seems generally happy about the quality of life the developers have given them, all for the modest price of $19.99.

Davis speculates that Valheim is so cheap because a genuine team of developers made it for people who want to enjoy games like it – unlike bigger, often money-hungry companies full of empty promises (looking at you, Bethesda).

According to an ongoing analysis of Steam’s concurrent players at steamcharts.com, the peak player count is almost 500,000 and the average daily player count rounds up to just under 200,000 since release.

Valheim has officially secured itself a spot in the top 5 games for player count on Steam. This is a massive win for the first-time game developers at Iron Gate AB.

Davis signed off with one last appraisal for the game, “I think as long as the producers don’t get greedy, Valheim can be this huge thing. But they have to do it right. They have to stick to this low-budget, ‘games for everyone’ model.”

Iron Gate AB putting this much effort into the game and its community personifies what it’s like to be a good, reliable, and efficient gaming company. It’s no wonder the game blew up as it did.