Ok, I think I get why Valheim is getting all the love now.
^^look I did the corner wrong alright^^
I kept seeing buzz about it, and half dismissing it because of the fuzzy graphics. But there's some real love and skill in here. And a large amount of it seems to have been lavished on how they generate their procedural biomes. The savings they've made with the low-poly look seem to allow the landscapes to come alive with other touches, from swaying long-grasses, stylistic wind indications, and just the right density of flora and fauna. The meadows, forests and swamps blend with each other seamlessly, and transform with the weather, leading you easily from a bit of incidental wood chopping, to a spot of mushroom picking down the hill, to pausing breathlessly in the shadows as you track a distant downwind deer (after a glimpse of its silhouette in a sunlit plain, or more often, after catching a distant barking call).
The starter zone is honestly just a chill-fest to semi-grind your way around. (Although I can see already that the grind-requirements are going to be traditionally daft :/).
I can't really judge how the combat and other mechanics play out in the standard game, because I'm swinging axes and clubs by hand. But the majority of the 'tasks' seem painless to flow through. (I kinda like that you can either devastate the natural area around your base, or chose instead to prune the forests of dead wood as you go instead. Given that sending pines trees crashing into each other in an organic domino rally is kinda fun and effective, I definitely did a lot of that. But I feel all woodsmanly and humane going about it the other way now
. And leaving my homestead environment all pretty like.)
From the art of not suffocating yourself in your homebrew shacks, to realising you can tame the wild hogs (by getting them to chase you over hills back to the pen that you’ve made
), there's loads to get lost in. (When you're not getting distracted by the light between the shifting trees dance over your latest construction that is...
. All daft and pixelated. But all satisfyingly there.)
And this is all starter stuff. The viking spirit boss battles, and ship exploration through the elements (and deformable voxel terrain) are supposed to be grand