Valheim Switch 2 Review
Version Reviewed: Nintendo Switch 2
Of all the worlds I’ve been lost in through gaming, Valheim holds a very special place in my heart. We were in the height of COVID lockdowns here in Australia, and I did something I hadn’t done in a very long time: I purchased a game for my laptop, a machine I otherwise solely used for work. Despite the game not running particularly well on my setup, I ended up spending more than 100 hours completely lost in the world of Valheim. Five years later, Valheim has officially left Early Access and made its way to Nintendo Switch 2. But after all this time, can it capture gamers in the same way it captured me all those years ago? What’s It Like? Grab your shield, sharpen your axe, and Valhalla can wait as we review Valheim for Nintendo Switch 2.
Valheim puts you in the Norse boots of a warrior who has died in battle, chosen by Odin to visit the mysterious tenth realm, Valheim. Your true purpose is to prove yourself worthy by defeating powerful bosses that you can summon and destroy, but you can’t simply power through the game. Instead, you’ll build, forage, hunt, and survive the wilds in a similar fashion to Ark: Survival Evolved, setting yourself up for success by taking your time to prepare. Progress in Valheim is intentionally slow, gating items and crafting recipes behind certain biomes or boss battles in order to let you make the most of the world, and while on paper this might sound like a negative thing, it’s one of the best design choices in Valheim by far.
In the early stages of the game, I was quite happy to settle into my Viking life in the Meadows biome, a forest and open grasslands area that has some minor enemies and plenty of deer and boar to hunt. I spent hours building my first house and setting up a simple production chain of hunting and cooking, while gradually upgrading to better leather armour in order to take the first boss on, which was a giant electric deer. After defeating it, it was time to move into the Bronze Age and start mining copper and tin, something I could now do thanks to being able to build a pickaxe from the deer’s antlers.
This led me to the Black Forest, an area swarming with plenty of Greydwarves, and worse, trolls… hulking monstrosities that could destroy you with a single hit. My map was littered with death markers from running into them and all sorts of trouble, and eventually, I used a hoe to flatten out a road so I could tow a cart and take plenty of materials back to my base to process there, avoiding danger as best as I could. Eventually, armoured up and battle-worn, trolls became a minor roadblock, as I would parry attacks and carve my way through anything in my path. This then led to my character having a dream to cross the ocean to find the swamp, and I was so excited to find new lands, but knew that meant leaving my established forge and safety behind. I spent days preparing before eventually making the arduous journey, finally making landfall on a new island. That’s what makes Valheim such a fantastic game to play. You feel like you’re in an actual adventure rather than arbitrarily crossing off objectives. There’s no rush; you can simply play the game however you want, only having to sometimes defend your home from a swarm of attacks.
This is where the game’s robust building model comes in, allowing you to build simple homes or heavily defended fortresses. I even reclaimed a dilapidated castle on the second island, creating a portal to move my crafting essentials to this new forward operating base. Construction took hours, building a chimney so smoke could escape while keeping me dry, and using support beams to ensure the structural integrity of my new renovations. You can’t simply stack piece by piece to make something; it needs to be supported and, at times, reinforced to stop your base from collapsing. In these sorts of games, I’m fairly “vanilla” when it comes to my builds, but in Valheim I worked so hard to make this new base the ultimate place to build up resources before heading into the swamps and plains, and it kept me occupied for hours.
Outside the walls of my new fortress, danger lurked at every turn… While the Greydwarves now only proved to be a minor annoyance, and grizzlies and trolls a small diversion, each new biome brought new threats that would test my mettle, forcing me to upgrade armour and build talismans for safety, until hitting the next wall at the Plains, which sent me back to the Swamp to find more materials to grow even stronger. This world is your oyster, and while you can do whatever you feel, Valheim will keep you in line if you try to skip forward or take a shortcut.
These adventures are brought to life by a rather unique visual style, offering an almost low-poly look with pixelated textures and surprisingly sophisticated lighting and shaders. At first glance, Valheim can look quite basic, with its chunky character models and deliberately rough textures, but there’s a lot more going on beneath the surface. The world of Valheim can be absolutely stunning, particularly when the lighting, weather and atmosphere all come together. The way sunlight breaks through the trees in the Meadows, the thick fog that rolls across the Black Forest, and the way the world changes as day turns to night all help make this procedurally generated world feel alive. There’s also a wonderful contrast between the peaceful beauty of your surroundings and the danger lurking just beyond the next hill. Each biome has its own distinct visual identity, from the lush green Meadows and dense Black Forest to the murky Swamps and imposing Mountains, and as you venture further into the world, the environments become increasingly hostile while also giving you another reason to stop and admire your surroundings.
All of this is backed by a haunting and beautiful score that blends traditional Norse influences with heavy metal, creating a soundtrack that feels perfectly at home in Valheim’s harsh and mysterious world. There are beautiful strings, like a sorrowful violin, that can make simply wandering through the wilderness feel almost peaceful, only to be interrupted the moment danger appears, with the music shifting to something far more intense, especially in boss battles. It’s all very well done.
Now, as much as I wish I could say Valheim performs flawlessly, this is unfortunately the biggest fault with the port. Valheim supports a Graphics mode offering gorgeous visuals locked at 30fps, Balanced, which aims for 40fps on 120Hz displays, and Performance, which targets 60fps, and it reaches those goals. Unfortunately, the game frequently hitches when loading in assets, making it stutter quite often. Sleeping will get the engine to clear out unused assets, and if you stay in the same area, it rarely happens, but as you adventure further afield, there will be hitches as the game generates new areas, and it adds a blemish to an otherwise polished game. Another issue is that moving at speed, like sprinting through the forest, can cause assets to pop in as they load. It’s noticeable, but far less egregious than the loading hitches. For me, these hitches did very little to get in the way of losing myself in Valheim for 30-odd hours, loving nearly every minute of it, but it’s definitely noticeable, and will be something you would need to decide you can put up with should you decide to venture forth into Valheim.
For my Vikings and Viking queens looking into accessibility, there are a few options here to make your time in the tenth realm more comfortable. The game supports Joy-Con mouse mode, keyboard and mouse, and gyro aiming, alongside a few visual options like reducing bloom, motion blur and depth of field. There are also difficulty modifiers for your world, such as resource rates, passive enemies, and no build costs, should you aim for a more cosy experience. At just under $44 AUD, Valheim offers hundreds of hours of gameplay for those looking for a more adventure-focused take on Minecraft. Better yet, you can also adventure with up to nine other Vikings, taking on the world together and building some epic communities along the way.
Valheim on Switch 2 is an incredible adventure that lets you play your way. Sure, it will gently nudge you in the direction you should go, but the journey is what you make of it on the way to your destination. Whether you want to be a mighty warrior, settle down for a peaceful farming life, or explore the far reaches of the world, Valheim never forces you towards the destination. Sure, there are technical hiccups that dent the armour of an otherwise near-masterpiece, but they did very little to dampen my wonderful adventure, which is nowhere near over. As the old adage goes, a knight in shining armour has never had their mettle tested… What are you waiting for? Valhalla awaits!
So, What’s it Like? Valheim is like Minecraft, crossed with Skyrim.
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