Valheim Releases New Update for April 2024

10.04.2024 - 20:13 / gamerant.com / John DiCarlo / New Update

Developer Iron Gate Studio has released a new update for Valheim that includes a Unity engine upgrade, performance improvements, and various bug fixes. Iron Gate explained that the update's main goal is to make Valheim smoother and prepare it for the future Ashlands update.

A release date for Valheim's Ashlands patch has not been confirmed yet, but it's expected to launch sometime in the first half of 2024. The major update will introduce the Ashlands biome, which is a barren, volcanic setting always located along the southern edge of the map. The Ashlands update will also add new enemies, weapons, animals, food, and more to Valheim, including the Ashlands Fortress located at the heart of the new biome.

In preparation for Ashlands, Valheim's April 10 update called Patch 0.217.46 upgrades the game's Unity engine to version 2022.3.17f, which the engine maker released in January of this year. The update also upgrades Valheim's performance by significantly changing how certain locations like Dungeons are loaded and unloaded. However, Iron Gate noted that this change likely affects most mods, so players using these add-ons may run into some issues. The update's other adjustments include various gameplay improvements, like hammers now being able to remove naturally spawned beds and dealing knockback to an enemy on a slope no longer affecting the player dealing said knockback.

The update also includes a bunch of bug fixes, some of which apply to Valheim's boats. For example, boats suddenly stopping when transferring ownership or accessing boat storage and issues surrounding boat ownership after a client disconnects should both be fixed. Also, sails should now blow in the direction that corresponds to the wind.

Since Iron Gate emphasized that this update focuses on laying the groundwork for the Ashlands update, fans have already begun to speculate that the major patch could release quite soon with some hoping for a launch within the month; however, this is of course unconfirmed. Valheim's last major update came back in August when Iron Gate released the Hildir's Request patch. The update added the Hildir merchant NPC, Hildir's Camp, new dungeons, three mini-bosses, and more.

Fans hope that Valheim's Ashlands update will inject new life into the game, which has struggled to return to the massive popularity seen shortly after its 2021 launch. The last time Valheim broke 60,000 concurrent Steam users was in February 2023, partially thanks to a resurgence in popularity with December 2022's release of the Mistlands update.

Hello vikings! We've got a bunch of fixes and improvements for you today, to smooth out the game and to prepare everything for the upcoming Ashlands update. This patch touches on everything from