Valheim's Hearth & Home update is coming this autumn
They've torn up the old roadmap in favour of bigger, slower updates
Valheim's developers have responded to the overwhelming success of the viking survival game by revamping their update roadmap. The Hearth & Home update will still be the first to arrive, but they're now aiming for launch this autumn. More broadly, Iron Gate will be "putting aside the smaller updates for now" in favour of meatier new content.
The news was shared on a post on Steam, which explained that the large influx in players is what led to the changes.
"We weren’t prepared for such a large influx of players, and this highlighted a thousand new problems and bugs that needed to be fixed urgently," reads the post. "Our priority has been to make the current experience as stable as possible and this has meant new content has taken a backseat. To put it clearly; we haven’t been able to focus all of our resources on Hearth & Home until May."
The post also shared the first specific details about what Hearth & Home will contain. As its name suggests, it's focused on the homesteads players can build between battling monsters. The post shows examples of additions including window hatches, new cooking stations such as a butcher table and spice rack, and plantable (and pretty) onions.
It will also overhaul the cooking system, allowing you to make meals which either boost your health or stamina and then having your amount of those resources change your poise in combat. "If you want to play a tanky, defensive viking you should now stock up on health, since this will boost your ability to deflect incoming hits and mitigate damage," says the post.
Once the H&H update is released, Iron Gate say they'll immediately turn their attention to another substantial update for the Mistlands region. There had originally been smaller additions planned to sit in between the bigger releases, but no more.
If you're hoping for more information about the update ahead of its release or the roadmap in general, there may be more on the way soon. Iron Gate are doing a Q&A on the Valheim subreddit tomorrow at 5am PST/8am EST/1pm BST.