"For five months there was one programmer fixing bugs": Valheim devs were not prepared for their Viking survival game's explosive success

When Valheim first launched in early access in 2021, it seemed like the Viking-inpsired survival game was all anybody could talk about. Now, four years and millions of sales later, the developers reflect on their indie project's success.

"It was just five of us going into early access," lead developer Robin Eyre tells GamesRadar+ at Gamescom. "I was hoping for 20,000 sales [...] When we were getting one million sales every week for eight weeks, we were on top of Steam charts, I was like, 'what is going on?'"

Originally, Eyre says the team planned to finish up Valheim by the 5th biome if it didn't sell well. Then they'd all move on to something new. Instead, they had a hit on their hands.

"So the first thing we had to do was make sure that everyone could play the game," Eyre continues. "So for five months, there was one programmer fixing bugs so all these millions of players could play the game."

It did feel like there was relatively little new material for the game right after launch, but it makes sense that the focus was on fixing what was there rather than adding more fuel to a potential fire. All part of the team's mission to "keep the quality pretty high."

Despite the fact Eyre's "wildest imaginations couldn't have seen myself being in this position, making a game that blew up, and being able to see articles online about 'the Valheim killer,'" there are "no bad feelings at all" about other survival games that have come since and been inspired by Valheim.

"Seeing other devs, like Enshrouded, and seeing that openly is very humbling," says QA manager and producer Andreas Thomasson. "You don't feel the competitiveness at all, it's like, 'take whatever you want from Valheim, and make it your own.'"

"Seeing anyone pushing the genre more is just good," adds Eyre. "Runescape Dragonwilds, they're really nice people doing the best they can, just like everyone else in the industry. We're rooting for them."

It's not just survival games borrowing from Valheim, though; even Fortnite is getting in on the action. "I remember when we released, and there were so many people getting killed by trees, and then six months later they were doing that in Fortnite," Eyre remembers. "It was so nice to see that we had an impact, because before us, trees would just fall down, and not have any impact." Now I know who to blame every time a falling tree kills me in a video game.

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