Positives

+ Hardcore semi-voxel survival game with an extremely linear progression system.
+ Immersive atmosphere due to aesthetics, sound design and environments. The lore/setting also does a lot of the carrying. The weather sound effects carry the game a lot, too. Especially during storms.
+ The building system is great (when it works properly). In fact, it's so good that I think it's wasted on this game. I hope it gets 1:1 copied by a better game of the same vein in the future.
+ Tree physics is one of the very few genuinely fun things in this game. Seeing massive logs roll down and break/kill stuff never gets old.
+ Crafting stations and how you "upgrade" them is cool.

Neutral/Informative

+/- The meal system is interesting. Basically, it lets you have 3 different meal buffs at the same time, and meals have different bonuses to max Health and max Stamina.
+/- Parrying is relatively easy. All you have to do is to block before an attack lands, and you don't have to be very precise. Some attacks are almost instantaneous, though.
+/- You can parry enemy projectiles, and the shooter/caster will get staggered from afar in some cases.
+/- There is no "randomized" loot. Every single mob drops their specific loot in specific amounts.
+/- There are no Steam Achievements or Points Shop items. For people who care about at least one of those things, that's actually a negative.
+/- Procedurally generated world and dungeons.
+/- The UI might not be everyone's cup of tea.

Negatives

- Your character never inherently gets stronger. Forsaken powers are underwhelming as hell.
- Game is borderline unplayable without mods due to multiple key QoL mechanics missing. Notable examples include: Craft X amount, mass planting, filling smelters fast, destroying items, auto-repair gear in bag when you interact with forge/workshop. On top of that, each item takes 2 seconds to craft. Metals take 25 to 30 seconds per bar, and fermenting something takes a whopping 40 minutes in real time. A plant or mushroom takes FOUR real time hours to grow.
- Dropping everything on you upon death and losing 5% of your total skill levels (by default) is not punishing in the good way. The game is far too tedious by design for all that to be a "reasonable" setback. Travelling back to where you died is already a big punishment.
- Devs practically did no work since launch in terms of performance, playability or QoL as far as I can tell (I did acquire a copy at launch). More than three years of Early Access and millions upon millions of money, and the game is still in a highly questionable state.
- Equipped gear stays in your bag, and will still occupy space. That's at least 4 to 5 slots occupied by default for absolutely no good reason. You also have no way of increasing bag slot count. You can't recycle useless/old gear. You can't even destroy items. You can only drop them, and they will take several ingame days to despawn, like every other loose item you left all over the place while exploring. A lot of items are worthless McGuffins with exactly one use.

- You can't dig tunnels. If you attempt to dig sideways after digging straight down, the entire terrain above you gets dug to your level.
- NPC AI might as well not exist. Enemies have major pathfinding issues even on FLAT GROUND, and move about without attacking or getting close to you (to waste your time).
- It's basically impossible to find the two merchants in your world in a reasonable time frame without using the online map viewer. Even if you do, one of them sells garbage anyway.
- There is no reward for exploration, unless the reward you are looking for is the next biome and the boss location. There are no interesting structures or loot to find. There are no abandoned Portals, either.

- Whoever decided to add flying enemies into a game where there's no vertical melee targeting deserves to be exiled from the gaming industry for the rest of their miserable lives.
- Dungeons are a hassle to navigate due to the camera not being cool with cramped spaces. They also never reset apart from the vegetation inside. That means, they are one-use quick "dungeons" which are forgotten after you strip them of the non-renewable resources inside. The dungeon generation is also inconsistent, with long corridors leading to absolutely nothing in rare cases (and no loot).
- No way of checking what a material is used for without sifting through recipes or checking the wiki.
- Almost every piece of equipable gear has varying amounts of movement speed reduction on it, weapons, shields and tools included.
- The spawn rates are too high, even in "easy" biomes. Gathering something instantly starts triggering invisible spawners nearby. Sometimes, enemies spawn a few meters behind you out of nowhere. The spawn rates get cranked up to eleven in Mistlands and Ashlands.

- Traversal is a chore. A regular slope a normal person can climb in real life is an oiled-up slide in this game. You have to constantly spam-jump to "climb" up mountains.
- Stamina regen speed is disgustingly slow by default. Dodge rolling is worthless because it takes several business days to execute. You either stay at range to use your bow, overwhelm enemies with sheer force or parry the crap out of them.
- Performance could have been better. Especially considering the visuals. The game also stutters often for no apparent reason, even on high-end PCs.
- Enemies have a very large aggro range. Once they detect you, prepare to wipe them all out or die in the process.
- Your "map draw" range is ridiculously small, even if your draw distance is maxed out or if you are on a ship and can see far.

- You can't use weapons while swimming, but enemies can still attack you when they are submerged. On top of this, enemies may rarely spawn inside mineable terrain. If they are ranged, they can still shoot at you in some cases. Ranged enemies can shoot in water.
- Major visibility issues in most biomes to the point of making the game illegible (low lighting, constant fog, smoke or mist).
- The enemy star system is half-baked, and not all enemies that can have "stars" have distinct visuals. Losing 75% of your HP in a single blow to a 2-star enemy because they look exactly the same as 0-star enemies is really fun.
- Rolling doesn't decrease Burning duration.
- Bosses have way too much health, but have very limited movesets.

- There is no enemy friendly fire among different mobs, even if an enemy deploys literal meteors or slams the ground to create a massive shockwave.
- Swimming is basic as hell. Armor and inventory weight are irrelevant. You swim at the speed of a starfish, and use stupid amounts of stamina at all times.
- You quite literally have to load the Arbalest every single time you pull it out, even if you don't shoot it.

Vintage Story (voxel-based realistic wilderness survival game with Lovecraftian lore)
Terraria (at least the progression has some RNG to it, so it's not always the same song and dance)
Minecraft

[h3]Valheim, despite having a good premise, is far too tedious and frustrating for the average survival game enthusiast. The basic gameplay loop consists of conquering biomes in a set order, while also grinding quite a bit in each one to be strong/prepared enough for the next one. Repeat half a dozen times, and that's the whole game. Most of the difficulty comes from cheap shots, bad design, jank or oversights. Still worth picking up if you use a bunch of mods and/or if you have a friend group you plan to play with. However, I can't recommend a game that is padded so much that it "requires" mods or friends to be "reasonably playable and enjoyable". A massive waste of time, sanity and energy, compared to "good" games of the same genre. The negatives far outweigh what little positives this game offers. Overall Score: 3.5/10. When modded, it's 6/10 at best.[/h3] [u][b]Positives[/b][/u] + Hardcore semi-voxel survival game with an extremely linear progression system. + Immersive atmosphere due to aesthetics, sound design and environments. The lore/setting also does a lot of the carrying. The weather sound effects carry the game a lot, too. Especially during storms. + The building system is great (when it works properly). In fact, it's so good that I think it's wasted on this game. I hope it gets 1:1 copied by a better game of the same vein in the future. + Tree physics is one of the very few genuinely fun things in this game. Seeing massive logs roll down and break/kill stuff never gets old. + Crafting stations and how you "upgrade" them is cool. [u][b]Neutral/Informative[/b][/u] +/- The meal system is interesting. Basically, it lets you have 3 different meal buffs at the same time, and meals have different bonuses to max Health and max Stamina. +/- Parrying is relatively easy. All you have to do is to block before an attack lands, and you don't have to be very precise. Some attacks are almost instantaneous, though. +/- You can parry enemy projectiles, and the shooter/caster will get staggered from afar in some cases. +/- There is no "randomized" loot. Every single mob drops their specific loot in specific amounts. +/- There are no Steam Achievements or Points Shop items. For people who care about at least one of those things, that's actually a negative. +/- Procedurally generated world and dungeons. +/- The UI might not be everyone's cup of tea. [u][b]Negatives[/b][/u] - Your character never inherently gets stronger. Forsaken powers are underwhelming as hell. - Game is borderline unplayable without mods due to multiple key QoL mechanics missing. Notable examples include: Craft X amount, mass planting, filling smelters fast, destroying items, auto-repair gear in bag when you interact with forge/workshop. On top of that, each item takes 2 seconds to craft. Metals take 25 to 30 seconds per bar, and fermenting something takes a whopping 40 minutes in real time. A plant or mushroom takes [b]FOUR real time hours[/b] to grow. - Dropping everything on you upon death and losing 5% of your total skill levels (by default) is not punishing in the good way. The game is far too tedious by design for all that to be a "reasonable" setback. Travelling back to where you died is already a big punishment. - Devs practically did no work since launch in terms of performance, playability or QoL as far as I can tell (I did [i]acquire[/i] a copy at launch). More than three years of Early Access and millions upon millions of money, and the game is still in a highly questionable state. - Equipped gear stays in your bag, and will still occupy space. That's at least 4 to 5 slots occupied by default for absolutely no good reason. You also have no way of increasing bag slot count. You can't recycle useless/old gear. You can't even destroy items. You can only drop them, and they [b]will take several ingame days to despawn[/b], like every other loose item you left all over the place while exploring. A lot of items are worthless McGuffins with exactly one use. - You can't dig tunnels. If you attempt to dig sideways after digging straight down, the entire terrain above you gets dug to your level. - NPC AI might as well not exist. Enemies have major pathfinding issues even on FLAT GROUND, and move about without attacking or getting close to you (to waste your time). - It's basically impossible to find the two merchants in your world in a reasonable time frame without using the online map viewer. Even if you do, one of them sells garbage anyway. - There is no reward for exploration, unless the reward you are looking for is the next biome and the boss location. There are no interesting structures or loot to find. There are no abandoned Portals, either. - Whoever decided to add flying enemies into a game where there's no vertical melee targeting deserves to be exiled from the gaming industry for the rest of their miserable lives. - Dungeons are a hassle to navigate due to the camera not being cool with cramped spaces. They also [b]never[/b] reset apart from the vegetation inside. That means, they are one-use quick "dungeons" which are forgotten after you strip them of the non-renewable resources inside. The dungeon generation is also inconsistent, with long corridors leading to absolutely nothing in rare cases (and no loot). - No way of checking what a material is used for without sifting through recipes or checking the wiki. - Almost every piece of equipable gear has varying amounts of movement speed reduction on it, weapons, shields and tools included. - The spawn rates are too high, even in "easy" biomes. Gathering something instantly starts triggering invisible spawners nearby. Sometimes, enemies spawn a few meters behind you out of nowhere. The spawn rates get cranked up to eleven in Mistlands and Ashlands. - Traversal is a chore. A regular slope a normal person can climb in real life is an oiled-up slide in this game. You have to constantly spam-jump to "climb" up mountains. - Stamina regen speed is disgustingly slow by default. Dodge rolling is worthless because it takes several business days to execute. You either stay at range to use your bow, overwhelm enemies with sheer force or parry the crap out of them. - Performance could have been better. Especially considering the visuals. The game also stutters often for no apparent reason, even on high-end PCs. - Enemies have a very large aggro range. Once they detect you, prepare to wipe them all out or die in the process. - Your "map draw" range is ridiculously small, even if your draw distance is maxed out or if you are on a ship and can see far. - You can't use weapons while swimming, but enemies can still attack you when they are submerged. On top of this, enemies may rarely spawn inside mineable terrain. If they are ranged, they can still shoot at you in some cases. Ranged enemies can shoot in water. - Major visibility issues in most biomes to the point of making the game illegible (low lighting, constant fog, smoke or mist). - The enemy star system is half-baked, and not all enemies that can have "stars" have distinct visuals. Losing 75% of your HP in a single blow to a 2-star enemy because they look exactly the same as 0-star enemies is really fun. - Rolling doesn't decrease Burning duration. - Bosses have way too much health, but have very limited movesets. - There is no enemy friendly fire among different mobs, even if an enemy deploys literal meteors or slams the ground to create a massive shockwave. - Swimming is basic as hell. Armor and inventory weight are irrelevant. You swim at the speed of a starfish, and use stupid amounts of stamina at all times. - You quite literally have to load the Arbalest every single time you pull it out, even if you don't shoot it. [h2]Other Notes:[/h2] [h3]Alternatives/Similar Titles:[/h3] Vintage Story (voxel-based realistic wilderness survival game with Lovecraftian lore) Terraria (at least the progression has some RNG to it, so it's not always the same song and dance) Minecraft