As Valheim comes to Xbox, its impeccable vibes still set it apart

gamesradar.com:

On a simple journey, returning home after visiting Valheim's mysterious merchant on a neighboring island, I'm suddenly hit by what made this game so special when it first launched, two years ago. Cresting an innocuous hill, I look down the rocky slope, sunlight glinting off the stone after the recent rain, one of my co-op partners scrambling towards our ship, bobbing gently as the waves break against the natural harbor we anchored it in. 

This is what made Valheim such a memorable experience in 2021: the sense that you're a part of this world, working with it rather than just exploiting it for your own gain. It's an often-mocked survival game trope that every game starts you out with a collection of sticks and rocks, and while Valheim is just as guilty of that as many other games, it makes clear that those basic tools don't make you master of your domain. Hacking down a tree can still send a falling trunk to squish an unsuspecting viking. An excursion to mine some metal ore puts you at the mercy of trolls and greydwarves. When the sun goes down or the rain starts to fall, the only thing that can keep you warm and dry is to huddle together around the fire as the lightning crashes above you.

More than anything, it was those moments, the ones that felt like they embraced the Scandinavian concept of 'hygge' – a lifestyle with an emphasis on coziness and contentment – that truly brought Valheim to life. The hunkering down, with a dedicated comfort meter to make sure you're warm, dry, and preferably swaddled in animal furs, letting you fast-forward to whatever the next day brought. Often, that next day was one filled with its own bizarre adventures, Valheim's sandbox approach to 'survival' being perfectly content to let you