Valheim's Swamps & Plains Are Its Most Deadly Biomes
According to a group of helpful Valheim players known as the Body Recovery Squad, the survival game's most deadly biomes are its swamps and plains. Despite taking place in a Norse mythology-informed Viking afterlife, there are many hazards and enemies designed to kill Valheim explorers, and death spells losing all of one's stuff where they die.
Valheim currently has nine biomes for players to roam and exploit for unique resources, and they're not all created equally. The starting meadows biome is a beautiful, green mix of grassland and forest, meaning that players have plenty of wood, open spaces, and relatively little danger to help them on their way as they begin their Viking journeys. Some biomes, though, are much more challenging to navigate. Mountains pose natural dangers like cold and heights, and Drakes and Wolves make mountain treks even more treacherous. Meanwhile, the Black Forest biome is home to Greydwarves and Trolls, all of which want to see trespassing players dead.
Recently, the Valheim Body Recovery Squad shared its collective findings after completing over a thousand successful item recoveries for players that needed a hand, and it appears that the swamp and plains biomes are by far the most deadly in the game's current state. Whereas the Deep North, Mistlands, and Ashlands seem to be the safest areas in Valheim since they aren't yet finished, the plains and swamp have cumulatively claimed a whopping third of all players' lives out of those that have subsequently sought out Body Recovery Squad assistance to retrieve their belongings after death.
For players who have explored these locations (as well as mountains, which came in third with a little under one-fifth of player deaths recorded), it likely comes as a moderate surprise that the dark, deadly swamps of Valheim seem pose less of a challenge than its golden plains. Despite the plains' beauty, however, Fuling Beserkers and Shamans, and even the aptly named Deathsquito, call the rolling biome home. Due to the purposeful layout of the game worlds' seeds, plains are also intended to be a late-game biome, so it tracks that developer Iron Gate Studios would attempt to increase the area's difficulty relative to other areas. Swamps, with their diverse array of items, annoying mobs, and constant Wet status application to players, are still certainly no slouch, but plains seems to be the most dangerous for now.
Once Iron Gate gets far out enough from its goal of eradicating launch bugs and polishing the core experience to its desired sheen, it's not hard to imagine Valheim's endgame getting progressively tougher. Based on high player interest in what the Deep North, Mistlands, and Ashlands will one day hold, those will be more-than-welcome challenges for Vikings looking to tempt fate.
Valheim is available on PC.
Source: Body Recovery Squad