Of course, the day has to come when the devs call a wrap on Valheim I, raise the price and start creating new content they can charge for (but they'll be in competition with other indie modders, which they seem to welcome. See their EULA.[irongatestudio.se] )

If they stick to this, Valheim will grow to become immense. Indie developers can add content, or spin-off new games, such as games based on a different mythos or another premise altogether. Earthsea?

With cash flow, the devs can work on Valheim II (or something completely different, or retire and do Monty Python sketches.)

Endless critters and plants and biomes and build-pieces can be added to the game we have. Depth can be added as simply as adding more runestones that hint at the back-story, or adding more cave art, or hidden portals that lead from one crypt to another.

Given labels and drawings that can map to a 3D plane that's part of an object, and for extra points adapt to to its textures, it would be easy to add all sorts of ancient graffiti. I bet such label widgets already exist for C#, or could be part of Unity.

Another thing that's available is simple chat bots. Plug one into Haldor and it becomes possible to have a "conversation." He's a bit potty, but mixed with the word-salad you could learn useful lore and gather more hints of Valheim's history.

Where are all the people Haldor does business with? Who built all the ruins? Haldor could be part of a class of mobs that you meet from time to time who might try to kill you or have useful information (if you can get it out of them) or might just waste your time. The majority are paranoid and keep their distance.

That's a bit ambitious, since it would have to work in multiple languages, but menu based interactions that allow swapping items from your inventories would be possible, when the given Haldor-class mob is interested in trading rather than killing you for their bone collection. You can only find this out by approaching them or allowing them to approach you, the latter being safer. They have a mix of arms and armor and the berserk ones have few and simple attacks. On the other other hand, they might be wielding a crystal ax and riding a Lox. And they can use portals.

You can eat their raw flesh at the cost of skill-loss and feed it to wolves at the cost of making them less tame. Attempting to cook or burn them is not advised. You have to dispose of the corpse a little at a time or leave it to rot, which will attract wild wolves the first day, and corpse eaters afterwards. Each one you kill is replaced by a ghost, and if the corpse is not eaten in a few days it is replaced by a random spawner.

How about discrete portals that are good for a short distance only, but they don't put on a fireworks display and you can walk through one without being aware of it unless you carry metal ore. They can show the destination scene, or the scene behind them, or the scene from a designated deek portal, and can be clipped into walls and doorways. You may encounter them in tombs or ruins. Pass through at your own risk.

For Valheim II

Seasons. You have to make a certain amount of progress before winter sets in and fell things come down from the mountains. This is a heavy lift, since putting the biomes through basic seasonal garb isn't enough. It's important to capture multiple moods of every season, like a rainy fall day after all the leaves have dropped, with or without patches of snow and ice or mud.

That's more than enough for one post. I can't believe you read this far. (You skimmed, right? You're still crazy.)