Valheim: Norse survival game passes two million sales in Steam early access

A new game is rocketing up the charts despite a fatal flaw that could force you to start all over again.

A new survival video game is surging in popularity, entering the top 10 most played games on Steam despite an “evil bug” that could force you to start all over again.

Valheim launched on Steam at the start of February as an early access game, meaning it’s not quite finished yet, but you can still have a crack at playing it while the developers add the finishing touches, often with the input of early gamers.

Since launching on February 2, Valheim has surged past two million players, even hitting a concurrent peak of 391,325 players at the same time according to Steam Charts.

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Valheim is surging in popularity on Steam.

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It was the second most popular game on Tuesday, behind the always popular Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (or CS: GO).

The game is an open-world survival title from Swedish developer Iron Gate.

You play as a former Viking, now trapped in the afterlife, forced to craft, build and fight for survival.

There is also support for multiplayer.

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You play as a fallen Viking in Valheim.

Steam gamers have left overwhelmingly positive reviews for the title.

“Accidentally played for 12 hours straight … it’s good!” wrote one.

Others said it was “much more polished than any other ‘early access’ game I have played. Very fun and engaging,”, while another gamer described the game as “absolutely amazing”.

But if you want to try it yourself be sure to save often.

The game is not yet perfect.

in windows Worlds & characters are saved in C:\Users\Username\AppData\LocalLow\IronGate\Valheim\

— Richard Svensson (@dvoidis) February 12, 2021

The game is currently afflicted by a “world destroying” bug.

“Please backup your world and characters,” Iron Gate CEO Richard Svensson said.

“It’s an evil bug, that we have yet to be able to reproduce even once,” Mr Svensson wrote.

He said the bug seems to occur more when exiting the game using the shortcut ALT+F4, so Mr Svensson advises using the in-game menu to quit and to backup game data (located in C:\Users\Username\AppData\LocalLow\IronGate\Valheim) as you go.