From a new survival sandbox title to the hottest early access title, Iron Gate’s Valheim has been on fire. It launched last month and garnered more than five million players in about 30 days. The developer has already spoke about expanding but a recent video highlights its community manager Lisa Kolfjord.
Kolfjord joined the company in 2019 as a 3D artist and community manager, and is responsible for creating items like the Odin hood cape, some food items and black metal weapons. Once Valheim blew up, she transitioned to community manager full-time, managing the game’s now-100,000 strong Discord community and handling 200 to 300 emails per day. “It’s still a mixture of extreme excitement and a little bit of horror to try to keep everything functioning. If I could clone myself, I would make at least five. So I could put one of me that only focuses on Discord, one on Twitter, one on emails. So that everyone can get my full attention.”
She feels that Valheim’s success can be attributed to its 10-player co-op nature and the “very cozy atmosphere that also has attracted a lot of people.” Granted, the job has brought its share of problems like angry and/or creepy messages. “I had one person who said he loved me and wanted to have kids with me. That’s very… I don’t think men get those emails, to the same extent. But luckily they’ve been very few so far.”
As Iron Gate expands further and delivers new content for Valheim en route to its full launch, it will grow even bigger. It should be interesting to see where things go from here, both for players and developers like Kolfjord. Stay tuned for more details in the meantime.