Valheim Hearth & Home Update Review: Subtle, Yet Effective

The time has come for Viking warriors to return to the tenth realm, improve their bases, and experiment with new foods and recipes in the Valheim Hearth & Home update. Hearth & Home is the first major content update for Iron Gate Studios’ crafting and survival game. The free Hearth & Home update introduces new features and rebalances existing features to subtly improve the game’s quality of life. There is a lot added in this update, but the content is polished and handled gracefully, to the point that returning players may forget that some of the features weren’t actually available at launch.

Whether players prefer to explore, build, or fight in Valheim, the improvements in this update affect all playstyles. As the title implies, the Hearth & Home update primarily focuses on building and cooking, introducing new furniture, decorations, and crafting stations as well as new food types and recipes. Players can now bake in the Oven, add a Spice Rack and Butcher Table to their Cauldron to upgrade it and increase the number of recipes they can cook, share map data with their friends at the Cartography Table, and use the Obliterator for easy item disposal.

Hearth & Home also introduces several new weapons, including the Crystal Battleaxe, which makes use of the Crystals dropped by Golems, the Silver Knife, and the Bone Tower Shield and Iron Buckler. Weapons were rebalanced in the update to offer players more options when fighting back against Greydwarves and Draugrs. New tar features in the Plains biomes also introduce new enemies to defeat and a new resource important for crafting Darkwood building materials. And, as possibly one of the most exciting additions, players can now name the animals they tame and may even use their tamed Lox as a mount for easier travel.

Creatures like deer and boar now drop separate types of meat, and each type of meat is required to cook separate recipes. Deer, boar, and even Neck, as well as berries and mushrooms, also seemed to appear more abundantly, though it is not clear if this was part of the update or just due to exploring new areas of the map. Edible items now include a color-coded fork icon to tell whether the food will increase health or stamina, so players can prioritize their food intake accordingly to earn the buffs they need for success.

Generally, the food and recipe rebalances work well. Because of them, combat becomes less predictable; now that a Viking’s maximum HP determines their ability to block, the choice of food and fighting moves is more important. Fighting even Greydwarves on an empty stomach is a dangerous idea that can lose Vikings all their items. Still, these updates don’t change the charm of Valheim’s lack of consequences for not eating, which maintains the fidelity of the original experience.

Building impressive bases and structures has traditionally been a draw of Valheim, and the Hearth & Home update makes it even easier for players to express themselves and customize their fortresses. The new decorative items, like the Raven and Wolf Darkwood carvings, treasure chests and stacks of Coins, and stone throne, fit right in with Valheim’s style and allow Vikings to create a cozier base. Other new items, like the Viking Hot Tub and Crystal Walls, give players the option to craft more modern structures with ease.

Following the Hearth & Home update, Valheim still feels like the same game that took the world by storm back in February 2021. The new building materials mostly affect the late-game, but the new foods, recipes, and weapons, and the combat adjustments, are apparent no matter where players left off. The changes are subtle and polished for a seamless experience, and some of the additions, like the ability to name tamed animals and ride Lox as mounts, are unexpectedly brilliant. It’s clear Hearth & Home was worth the wait. While there is a lot of content in this update to bring players back to the game, it may not be quite extensive enough to satiate fans long-term. Hopefully, the time between content patches will shorten as Valheim continues its Early Access period, and players can look forward to further updates as solid as this one.

Valheimis in Early Access and is available for PC.

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