Valheim’s Upcoming Difficulty Options Highlighted by Lead Designer

Valheim lead designer Jonathan Smårs has taken to Twitter to reveal the new difficulty settings coming to the base-building survival game. While the revealed difficulties aren’t final, among the options is a casual mode, a hardcore mode, and even a creative mode, dubbed Hammer mode.

Casual mode is slated to be the easiest difficulty mode for the core Valheim gameplay. While there will still be elements of survival and crafting, monsters will not attack players unless provoked. Players also won’t have their bases raided, and resources will be easier to find.

Hammer mode, on the other hand, will remove all restrictions in the game’s building options, allowing players to create just about anything for free. Much like Casual mode, monsters in Hammer mode will not attack unless provoked, and players won’t be raided.

A new Immersive mode also seems to be in the works, taking away the player’s map as well as their ability to use portals. This means that players will have to use their own navigational abilities to be able to keep track of where they are in the world.

New Easy and Hard modes are coming to Valheim as well. Both of these modes essentially effects the difficultry of combat, and how frequently players will find their bases being raided by monsters.

The hardest mode coming to the game, aptly titled Hardcore mode, features the hardest difficulty in combat as well as the highest frequency of raids. If a player dies, they will also lose all items they are carrying and skills forever. Much like Immersive mode, Hardcore mode will also not allow players to use a map or portals.

Are your ready for hardcore mode in #Valheim? ☠️
..or do you prefer something more chill?

Note: Actual settings are not final! @valheimgame #gamedev #indiedev #gamedevelopment pic.twitter.com/9OtOxDpkAo

— Jonathan Smårs (@jsmars) April 17, 2023