'Valheim': Vikings, Roadmaps & Buying a Horse During Early Access

In this 2024 Independent Games Summit talk, Jonathan Smårs shares insight into the Valheim development journey so far through a patch-by-patch breakdown and managing player expectations spanning multiple years of development during early access and lessons learned along the way, both internal and external challenges that have emerged, and oh - and they bought a horse. GDC returns to San Francisco in March 2025! For more information, be sure to visit our website and follow the #GDC2025 hashtag on social media. Subscribe to the GDC newsletter and get regular updates via Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or RSS. Join the GDC mailing list: Follow GDC on Twitter: GDC talks cover a range of developmental topics including game design, programming, audio, visual arts, business management, production, online games, and much more. We post a fresh GDC video every day. Subscribe to the channel to stay on top of regular updates, and check out GDC Vault for thousands of more in-depth talks from our archives.