Valheim devs want you start from scratch for Hearth & home

The developers of Valheim are encouraging players to start a new world when they're ready to explore the Valheim Hearth & Home Update.

The update coming on Thursday will be the first major new content drop since Valheim entered early access in February, and its main focus is on expanding the domestic side of life in the 10th realm. At least, that was the original idea. The update has since grown to encompass a new food system, revised stamina, and new parts of the world, and the developers at Iron Gate Studio made the case in a recent fireside chat video that the best way to experience it all is to start afresh, (via PC Gamer).

"I really hope people will, instead of just continuing playing with their own worlds, actually create a new world and start from the beginning, because we added and changed so much," Iron Gate founder Richard Svensson said. "So to get the best experience that’s probably what you should do. And what we would recommend."

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"I know a lot of people want to continue playing in their old worlds, but that’s probably not the best thing to do, if you want to, you know, experience all the new stuff."

It's also a practical approach to reliably encountering more new stuff, given how Valheim creates its worlds. The new parts of the world coming in the update will only appear in previously unexplored chunks of the map, and a new world is going to have a lot more unexplored map to fill in.

"Don’t spoil yourselves by going into your old worlds and checking out all the build pieces and all the things that you get, I’d say play fresh," Iron Gate artist Robin Eyre summarized, before busting out a brand new Hearth & Home motto: "Be fresh, play fresh! Thank you."