Guide for Beginners | How to Get Started in Valheim

This is a guide for beginners and how to start playing Valheim! Read more to begin your journey in the Viking afterlife and find out all you need to get started!

Starting the Game

If you're starting the game from scratch, you'll need two things before playing: a character and a world to play in.

Character Creation

If you are starting the game from scratch, you're going to need a character. Access the character creation menu by pressing the button indicated above and check our guide on character creation for more details.
Character Creation Guide

Choosing A World Seed

A world seed is a 10 character string that determines the generation of your world and where each biome, boss, and other landmarks will be. Some world seeds are better than others though, depending on what you're looking for. If you're starting a world from scratch, selecting the world seed will be in the same menu as choosing the name of your world. If you want a guide on the best world seeds, check our guide on world seeds here.
Best World Map Seeds

Playing Multiplayer

When starting a session you can also choose to play with others, either by hosting or joining a game! Playing Valheim with others can be tons of fun and can help make some tasks easier! Learn more about multiplayer in our guide below!

How to Play Multiplayer

What to Do Day One

You'll spawn in the center of a stone circle with nothing but your wits, rag clothing, and a torch. Follow these tips to get you through the first few minutes.

Listen to Hugin

Hugin the Raven will pop up when you do something for the first time or when you approach something relevant. It is essentially the tutorial and will offer helpful tips on how to go through the game.

Collect Branches and Gather Stone

You'll need Wood and Stone to survive so you need to collect branches and rocks from the floor. You can also melee attack thin saplings with your fists to get wood.

Gather Berries

You'll find Berry Bushes around the starting area. Food is important because it's what regenerates health, and your health and stamina bar grow larger the larger your food bar is.

Build an Axe

An axe is your first essential tool to surviving the world of Valheim. It allows you to get wood at a faster pace. Crafting an axe costs 5 wood and 4 stones.

Chop Down Trees

To get wood efficiently, you'll need to chop down trees. Simply hit trees with your axe until they turn to logs, and chop the logs when they fall. Two things to note: the starter axe cannot chop some types of trees, and falling logs will damage you if they fall on you.

Keep Inside the Meadow Biome

You will want to keep it inside the Meadow Biome when you first start. Heading into other Biomes like the Dark Forest when you are not ready can give you a bad time. Other Biomes can have stronger enemies that can give you a harder time if you have not progressed enough to be equipped for them. A rule of thumb is to not venture to other biomes until you have defeated a boss and gain new materials for new items to help you.

List of Biomes

Build a Weapon

You will want to build a weapon ASAP too. Your Axe can act as a weapon to deal slashing damage, but if you want a weapon to deal blunt damage, you will want to craft the Club! Each enemy will have a damage type they are weak to, shown by yellow damage numbers when dealing damage.

Best Weapon Types

Building your Base

Once you get the basics down, the first thing you need to start is a shelter. This is a campfire, a bed, and a workbench.

Build a Hammer and Workbench

Once you get enough wood to build a house, build a hammer with 3 wood and 2 stone. You can right-click with the hammer equipped to access the build menu and then build a workbench under the Crafting menu for 10 wood. This will allow you to build buildings in its vicinity, so build it near flat land.
How to Build and Upgrade the Workbench

Build Shelter

Find a nice flat land to settle in and build floors by right-clicking with the hammer equipped and looking under the Building menu. Once you selected what you will build, you will see a blueprint appear where you aim and left click to build it. after building floors, build walls, and a roof. You'll have to rebuild or build another workbench inside the house to be able to use it. You can dismantle furniture by middle-clicking them with a hammer and get the resources back.

Make sure to leave a floor and the roof above it open for the campfire.
House Building Guide

Build a Campfire

Build a campfire inside your house by dismantling one of the floors and putting the campfire on the ground. The campfire can only be built on the ground so take note of this when building your house. Additionally, add a hole above it for ventilation as smoke can build up in your shelter. Make sure there is a roof over your fire to protect it from rain.

How to Build and Use Bonfires

Build a Bed

Build a bed under the Furniture menu with the hammer, then place it in your house. This will allow you to respawn there if you die and allow you to sleep through the night.

What Happens When You Die?

Early Game Materials to Farm

Find Flint Near Water

Flint is one of the early materials you will want to get a lot of to help craft better equipment and upgrade your workbench. They are the white stones that spawn near water. If you want to find Flint easily, just walk along a river or the shore and keep an eye out on white rocks!

How to Farm Flint

How to Hunt Deers

Dears are one of the harder animals to hunt as they run away very quickly and easily. They also are the only source of Deer Hide and more importantly Deer Trophies. To hunt them, you will either want to try and get close by using Sneaking, making sure the wind doesn't blow towards them, or by using Bows.

How to Hunt Deer

Tame and Breed Boars For Meat and Leather Scraps

One of the two materials you are going to need in the beginning is Raw Meat and Leather Scraps. Raw Meat is needed as it is one of the best food items you can have at the start of the game and Leather Scraps is used to craft a lot of the early items and workbench upgrades. This will require a lot of Boar hunting. But you can make it easier by catching some boars, taming them, then breed them with each other. After you breed them, they can give you an infinite supply of boars for you to kill without having to run around the biome to find some.

Taming Guide: How to Tame Boars and Animals

Early Game Tips

Your Map is your Best Friend

When out adventuring in Valheim, your map is your best friend! Pressing M will bring up your map. From here you can see the available icon markers for key locations, pings, and your own placed markers. You will be opening your map often to make sure you are going the right way and to make sure you mark notable locations you want to come back to!

Map Guide

Reair Your Tools, Armor, and Weapons

Using your tools, armor, and weapons will decrease their durability, once it hits zero, you can't use that tool or weapon until repaired. Luckily, repairing is easy and free as long as you have a sheltered workbench! Go to your workbench and use it, you should see a hammer icon to the right of the crafting menu. Clicking on that will repair one of your tools and weapons on your inventory. Continue clicking it to repair everything you have!

How to Repair your Tools, Gear, and Buildings

Pay Attention to Your Food Combos

You only have 3 slots for the food you can eat, each one increasing stamina and health at different values. The combination of the 3 foods you eat can determine whether your health or stamina will be higher than the other, or will be balanced out. This can make it so you can eat specific combos for specific effects. Check out what are the best food combos for different situations.

Best Food Combos

Prepare for Raids

After setting up your base there are events called raids that can occur randomly. The raids only happen when you are at your base, when started a set of creatures will spawn and attack you and your base. This can be tough if you don't have the proper fortifications as they can destroy your structures if it means getting to you. Setting up walls for your base is recommended. Learn more on defending against raids in our guide below!

List of Raids: How do Raids Work?

Increase your Skills for an Easier Time

Skills will determine how well you do an action. The higher your skill, the better you are the action, allowing you to deal more damage or use less stamina. If you want to be more efficient at a skill, try using our grinding guide to help you!

Skill Leveling Guide: Max Skill Cap and How to Grind

Find Haldor the Merchant

Haldor is the only merchant that can be found in Valheim at the time of writing. You can buy items that can only be obtained from him by trading him with coins! You can also sell items marked as value for more coins to trade with. One of these items is the Megingjord, an item that can increases your carrying weight by 100 when equipped!

Haldor the Merchant

Keep Unlocking More Recipes

To fight the next boss you will need to gear up with better equipment than you used against the last one. This will require you to continue finding new recipes to help you upgrade your weapons, armor, and other items.

Recipe List

Work Towards Fighting the Next Boss

If you're not sure what you should be doing when first starting, you should focus on the goal of fight the first boss, Eikthyr. This will require you to get better gear, like better armor or weapons, which can be crafted by getting materials and upgrading your workbench. Once you think you are ready, summon Eikthyr by offering Deer Trophies and defeat it. After defeating Eikthyr, you should receive new material that can help you obtain more materials to help craft new items to help fight the next boss. Rinse and repeat until you have defeated the last boss to become the strongest Viking!

Boss Guide

Other Tips and Tricks

Now your adventure has truly begun. Check out our other tips and tricks guides to learn how to progress further in the game!

Valheim Tips and Tricks

Beginner Guides
List of Controls	Character Creation Guide
How to Emote	Cooking Guide: How to Make Food
Comfort Level and Rested Explained	Map Guide: How to Mark and Ping Locations
Skill Leveling Guide	Best World Map Seeds
Controller Layout and Support	How to Build Fire Indoors
Combat Guides
Combat Guide: How to Battle in Valehim	How to Parry: Parry Force and Parry Bonus
How to Hunt Deer	Bow Tips: How to Aim the Bow
List of Raids: How do Raids Work?	All Damage Types and Effects
Best Forsaken Power	Weapon Guide: How to Use Each Weapon Type
Crafting Guides
Crafting Guide: How Does Crafting Work?	How to Repair your Tools and Gear
How to Build and Upgrade the Workbench	How to Build and Upgrade the Forge
Recipe List
Advanced Game Mechanics
How to Use Cheats and Console Commands	How to Get Max Comfort
Farming and Resources Guides
Taming Guide: How to Tame Animals	Breeding Guide: How to Breed Boar and Animals
How to Plant Seeds and Grow Vegetables	Wolf Taming: How to Tame And Breed Wolves
House Building Guide	Fishing Guide: How to Fish
Adventuring Guides
Dungeons Guide: Locations and Types	How to Sail
Haldor the Trader: Where to Find and What He Sells	Buried Treasure: How to Find
How to Get Into Sunken Crypts
Tier Lists
Best Weapon Tier List	Best Armor Tier List
Multiplayer Guides
How to Play Multiplayer	How to Make a Personal Chest
PVP Guide: How to Turn on Friendly Fire	How to Fix Incompatible Version Error
FAQs
Do Resources Respawn?	What Happens When You Die?
How to Split Stacks to Take One Item	How to Take the Best Screenshots
Should You Launch With Vulkan?	Best Graphics Settings
Best Cheats to Use: How to Cheat Well	Do Bosses Despawn? How Bosses Work
Do Items Despawn? How to Throw Away Items	Mysterious Figures: The Grim Reaper and Thor
How to Find Maypoles	How to Quick Transfer Items
How to Kick Players	What's at the Edge of the World?
Does Valheim Have Endgame?	Why is my Console Not Working?

Valheim Related Guides

Valheim Wiki Top Page

Valheim Wiki Walkthroughs

Valheim Guides
Walkthrough	Boss Guides
Weapons	Armor
Tips and Tricks	Items and Materials
Buildings	Biomes
Monsters	Best Weapon Types
Message Boards	News and Updates
Skills