Valheim Receives Positive Reviews After Five Years in Early Access

Following its version 1.0 release, Valheim attracted over 160,000 simultaneous players and received an average score of 89% on Metacritic, ranking among the top-rated major releases of 2026.

Iron Gate’s game spent more than five years in early access after launching in February 2021, when its peak concurrent player count on Steam exceeded 500,000 people. Now, the full version has generated massive interest once again.

Reviewers particularly praise the world’s atmosphere, freedom of exploration, character progression, and the combination of survival with building, combat, and biome exploration. The new snowy Deep North region received high marks for its beauty and difficulty.

Version 1.0 adds new enemies and locations, more than 40 types of weapons, four armor sets, over 80 building pieces, and more than 10 creatures, including a tameable moose. It also introduces a grappling hook, a snow shovel, new events and achievements, as well as updated graphics, a revised interface, and reworked systems.

The game still faces issues with grinding, outdated mechanics, and technical bugs; nevertheless, even after five years, Valheim 1.0 has become one of the major surprises of 2026.