Valheim leaves early access on 9 September. Version 1.0 brings the Deep North, the last biome on the map, and closes a run that lasted five and a half years: the game entered early access on 2 February 2021.
What 1.0 brings
- The Deep North. The final biome the game stayed in early access for. The update centres on it, though a little new content lands elsewhere too.
- Achievements. There were none for all these years. In 1.0 there is a whole pile.
- Optimisation. Iron Gate promises large builds will run more smoothly, plus smaller improvements across the game.
- The ocean is untouched. The developers answer it plainly: 1.0 has no updates for the ocean biome.
Server size does not change: one to ten players, exactly as now.
Saves, achievements and cheats
The question everyone with a years old world is asking. The official FAQ answers it this way. Your world stays and does receive the new content, but biome generation will only work properly in areas you have not explored. So Iron Gate recommends starting over rather than running to the Deep North on an old character. Your saves stay where they are and you can keep playing them.
Achievements come with a catch worth knowing in advance. Statistics start counting from the moment you download 1.0. The achievement for killing Eikthyr has to be earned again even if you killed him in 2021.
And a hard line on cheats: almost any command such as spawn puts a flag on your character and world after which achievements never unlock. Characters that used cheats before 1.0 get the same mark. A couple of commands, freefly among them, are exceptions.
There will be no public test branch before release: the studio wants everyone to see 1.0 at the same moment. There is no official mod support and none is coming, no Steam Workshop either, so mods will need time after the update.
Also from the FAQ, on platforms. From 1.0 you will be able to buy Valheim on Steam for Windows, Linux and Mac, in the Mac App Store, on Humble, in the Microsoft Store, and on Xbox One, Xbox Series X and S, PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch 2. The PlayStation and Switch 2 versions arrive exactly with the release.
- Around 4.3 GiB to download on most platforms. Xbox One is about 3.0 GiB, while the Mac App Store and Microsoft Store versions weigh about 6.5 GiB.
- Crossplay between all platforms is in.
- Shared saves barely exist. Play on Xbox and you can reach your saves from a PC, but only if you launch the game from the Microsoft Store. Beyond that there is no sync.
On price. The FAQ says the full release carries a price of 29.99 dollars, with regional differences. On 5 September Valheim costs 29.99 euro on Steam, so if you were going to buy it, now is the moment to look.
Where your worlds now live on disk
The part of 1.0 nobody put in a headline. Iron Gate rebuilt the save system, tested it on the public branch first, and it changes where a world sits on your drive.
A world used to be two files, one .db and one .fwl. Now it is a folder: the database is split into chunks and only the chunks you changed get written each time the game saves. Backups get their own folders as well.
- Why they did it. Saving is faster and a corrupted world becomes less likely, because the game verifies the save after writing it. When it loads a world that is not chunked yet, it makes a backup first.
- What it means for you. Nothing, unless you move save files by hand. If you do, stop copying the old pair of files around, and do not shuttle saves between the test branch and the live game manually.
- The new limit nobody mentions. Cloud storage used to be capped by total size only. Some platforms also cap the number of files, and one world is now many files instead of two. If cloud saving starts misbehaving after the update, this is why.
- Modded games are untested. The developers say plainly that the new save system has not been tested with mods, and that there is no guarantee any mod works on day one.
Two new platforms, and what crossplay does not do
PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch 2 join the list on 9 September, alongside PC, Linux, Mac, Xbox One and Xbox Series. Crossplay works between all of them.
Crossplay lets you play together. It does not move your character. Save syncing across platforms is limited: an Xbox player using the Microsoft Store version on PC can carry saves over, but otherwise progress stays where it was made. Worth knowing before you buy the version on the other machine.
What it needs to run
The reason everyone could buy Valheim in 2021 still holds. The requirements have not moved for 1.0.
| Part | Minimum | Recommended |
|---|---|---|
| System | Windows 10 or later, 64 bit | Windows 10 or later, 64 bit |
| Processor | 2.6 GHz quad core or similar | Core i5 at 3 GHz or Ryzen 5 at 3 GHz |
| Memory | 8 GB | 16 GB |
| Graphics | GeForce GTX 950 or Radeon HD 7970 | GeForce GTX 1060 or Radeon RX 580 |
| Storage | 1 GB | 1 GB |
A GTX 950 is a card from 2015. The download is 4.3 GiB on most platforms, 3.0 GiB on Xbox One and 6.5 GiB through the Mac App Store and the Microsoft Store. The standard price becomes 29.99 dollars with the usual regional variation, and an Early Access copy simply updates, the same as any other patch.
On what comes after 1.0 the studio is careful: bug fixes and quality of life work continue, but it is too soon to say whether more content follows, and they have not committed to how long support runs. If you are looking for what else an older machine can still play, we keep a separate list.
Sources
Date, saves, achievements, cheats, platforms, download size and crossplay: the official 1.0 FAQ on the Valheim site, checked 5 September 2026. The description of the new chunked save system, the move from .db and .fwl files to folders, the verification after saving and the cloud storage file count limit come from Iron Gate patch notes for the public test build. The addition of PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch 2, full crossplay and the limits on cross platform save syncing, the download sizes of 4.3, 3.0 and 6.5 GiB and the 29.99 dollar price come from the official Valheim 1.0 FAQ and Iron Gate announcements on Steam. The system requirements are from the game Steam store page.
Early access date and the current price: the Valheim page on Steam.
The recommendation to start over and the run up to release: the Iron Gate post in the game's Steam news.
