Valheim sails past five million sales

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But how many have been killed by trees?

Valheim
(Image credit: Iron Gate Studios)

Why, it only feels like two weeks ago that Valheim blew past three million sales. But it actually only took 12 days for the wildly popular survival sandbox to add another two million Vikings to its roster, with the developer today announcing that Valheim has passed the five million player mark.

Valheim took us by surprise when it dropped at the start of this year, but has quickly become the biggest thing on Steam. Iron Gate now claims that those millions of players have accumulated over 15,000 years of in-game playtime, while Valheim has been viewed for over 35 million hours on Twitch.

While it was hard to tell why this survival game was gaining popularity where so many others failed, our Fraser reckoned much of its success comes from rejecting the chores that have come to define the genre. Both he and Chris L agree that it's extremely clever in trimming away the fat from its survival systems, and is shockingly pretty for a game that only takes up 1GB of disk space.

With so many people playing, we've also seen some fantastic creativity from Valheim's players. Oh, there are some beautiful homes and fancy timber spaceships to gawk at, the community has also been busy yeeting longboats, playing beer-pong, and pitting 50 feral wolves against the game's final boss.

Only just finding your footing in Valheim's old Norse sandbox? Here are 10 tips to get you started, while we've also a guide for setting up your own dedicated server if you're looking to bring in a few pals.

Natalie Clayton
Natalie Clayton
Features Producer

20 years ago, Nat played Jet Set Radio Future for the first time, and she's not stopped thinking about games since. Joining PC Gamer in 2020, she comes from three years of freelance reporting at Rock Paper Shotgun, Waypoint, VG247 and more. Embedded in the European indie scene and a part-time game developer herself, Nat is always looking for a new curiosity to scream about—whether it's the next best indie darling, or simply someone modding a Scotmid into Black Mesa. She also unofficially appears in Apex Legends under the pseudonym Horizon.