// PC GAMER — GAMING
Everything I saw on my trip to Valheim's final biome, the Deep North: from ghost vikings to rampaging moose
Met a seal, refused to kill it, then died to a moose. Nature is beautiful.
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It's been five years since Valheim launched in early access, and it's held on strong as one of my most-played games on Steam ever since. I wasn't the only one smitten with the viking-themed survival crafting game from Iron Gate either, as the studio says it's sold over 17 million copies to date.
That's a big ol' number for a game still in early access, but that's changing soon. During today's PC Gaming Show, Iron Gate announced that Valheim will launch its version 1.0 update on September 9.
As part of its big jump into 1.0, Valheim is getting a brand new biome, Deep North, and other quality-of-life upgrades. It's exactly what it sounds like, too. The Deep North is a deathly cold, winter wonderland where vikings will trudge through neck-deep snow and slip and slide across frozen lakes. I speak from experience. I played a bit of the 1.0 update as part of a guided tour with developers from Iron Gate, and it's got me excited about Valheim all over again.
Deep North is Valheim's final biome, and it's not just an extension of the snowy Mountain biome already in the game. It's more like the Meadows or Black Forest, so you'll find a lot of Deep North generated in your 1.0 worlds. And like those other biomes, it's meant to be accessible early on, but with a few more environmental hazards and new resources.
I like the approach, especially since it's a real pain to build in the only snowy landscape Valheim has for now. Even though I've explored as far as the Mistlands in my own adventures, I always wind up right back in the Meadows or Black Forest to build. But I don't want your takeaway to be that it's some walk in the park, because it's not.
I died meandering through the snow more than I ever died in the Black Forest—sometimes to the cold, and sometimes to gigantic beasts I was not prepared for. The Deep North seems like it's home to a mix of difficulties, and the further we pushed through the snow, the more I seemed to struggle with each new icy threat.
A lot was going on in just that brief hour I spent in the Deep North, so allow me to quickly list some of the highlights:
We also stopped by the Winding Tunnels, one of the new dungeons in Deep North. The name is exactly how it sounds, and had I not been surrounded by people on all sides, I know I would've gotten lost immediately. From what I saw, it's not too different from most Valheim dungeons, just a few more tight turns and spaces than normal.