Valheim's Hearth & Home update is finally out, and with it come some features known and new. This is the first major update, focusing on building, revamping the food system, and other optimizations and quality of life changes.
The recent dev diaries and videos have led up to this release, and with some potential quibbles as to how it will work (especially since the new content rewards those who have not fully explored the world yet), but it really is a significant and game changing update.
All weapons have been rebalanced to make them both viable as main weapon choice and for greater character variety. The food system overhaul has been widely discussed and referenced, but it gives either mainly stamina or mainly health to make choices matter more. Both give some structure to just how the team is going with character choices and customization.
In addition to the changes to food and a number of building pieces, some other included changes are the ability to share map data with others who are in your world, new birch, oak, and onion seeds available to plant even more kinds of trees, a way to destroy unwanted items, and a way to name your tamed animal friends. It's a simple little addition that adds a bit of fun. Also, tamed creatures are subject to friendly fire toggles, so if you don't enable friendly fire or use the new butcher knife, you can't hurt them.
However, the Valheim team also notes that there are some as-yet unannounced and decidedly darker things. In the update, they note "something dark and mysterious that seems to spread across the plains" that it would be worth checking and finding out what's more.
Remember that in order to play Hearth & Home, you'll have to find previously unexplored areas to activate some of the new stuff. And if you update and want to return back to your old world state, it won't work. For more on Valheim, head over to the Valheim site.
