Agree to some extent though it's more about looking up information for me.

Not gonna lie, it took me about 20 hours trying to figure out myself how to summon the first boss before finally giving in to visiting the fandom wiki for the answer.

Mainly, I think the player is supposed to wander around and explore, until they figure it out. The game doesn't tell you what to do, but the path forward opens up as you find and craft things. One mistake I made was not crafting nails right away. If you don't craft nails, you don't get the recipes that can be crafted with nails.

(you can't craft nails until you smelt metal. You can't smelt metal until you find ore. etc.)

valheim wiki has helped me a lot

Might just be you, it didn't take me long at all, although it did take me ages to realise I could repair my tools. But then again, that might just be me as well.

Here are some tips for you to get started:

1. Gather whatever you can find around you. To start, get branches, stone, flint, and whatever food you come across.

2. Stay within the Meadows biome. Don't go near the Black Forest.

3. Immediately create a Hammer with wood and stone.

4. Find a lovely place to settle into, and build a workbench with wood.

5. Put two walls down behind the workbench, put one wall on either side of the workbench, then put two slanted roofs over the workbench. Now you can repair your hammer and whatever other basic tools you make with it.

6. Within the white dotted sphere around the workbench, it will show you the area in which you can build your home. Make a basic A-shaped home for the best (my opinion) supported home. When you can, put a wall around it later.

7. Inside the home, on the ground level, put a campfire down, then a bed. Where the campfire is, make sure there is a chimney with a roof over it. Otherwise, the smoke will damage you, and the rain will put it out.

8. Make a chest, and put all your excess in there.

9. Try to make your first set of leather armour and upgrade them as soon as you can.

10. As you venture outward, make small outposts with beds and campfires along the way. If you get the materials for a portal, that would help you in far away journeys. Note that you cannot transport tamed animals and ore/ingots through portals.

11. Build a boat to go to other islands, but note that wind does play a role. If you get head wind, make the speed chevron at level 1. If you get tail or side wind, make the speed chevron at level 2 or 3. A raft cannot outrun sea serpents and leeches. Also, try to sail close to the shore and avoid the ocean when it's stormy and/or night time.

12. Don't venture into the mountain, plains, and swamp biomes until you get at least Bronze and Iron items.

13. Keep tabs on your food. For just building and getting materials, eat all stamina foods. If you're going up against your first boss, use a Bow and Flint Arrows, and eat Stam/Stam/Health foods.

Everyone gave real good tips and I have a few more new player tips plus one for the whole game and it is this:

Always have the "Rested" bonus on ALL the time. It gives you faster regen on health and stamina as well as a hidden 50% bonus on experience. You get it when near a fire. It lasts longer if other things add to your "comfort level" like shelter, a bed and a deer skin rug among other things. Even when you are "out and about" and it wears off merely plop down a campfire (finding or making shelter if it is raining), clear the immediate area of monsters then sit (press "X") near the fire. About 20 seconds later you will get another 8 minutes of the buff.

Other new player tips:

*Don't go out at night, you will get the "Cold" debuff, it reduces your stamina/health/ regen. Monsters are also more numerous and harder to defeat, higher hit points, possibly.
*Try to avoid getting wet, it also debuffs your stam/health regen. If you do get wet 5 stone and 2 wood will get you a campfire that quickly dries you out.

Cold, wet and at night can get you dead quickly if you are not careful...

Happy Hunting!

Killing Hugin will raise your skill on the weapon you use...

So it's kind of a win/win situation :)

It's a survival game technically, so they made it pretty brutal. Basically just pick up every resource you can, and Hugin will come for major milestones (like when you place new structures, visit new areas, defeat a new boss, etc).

The game starts off by telling you to find and defeat the first boss. The location is given to you at the shrine. So that's what you do! Good luck!

To repair items: open the workbench, and click on the hammer to the left of the craftable item list.

Personally, I feel Hugin shows up too much when it comes to early game hints. A normal tutorial section might be better, but more in the way that Dark Souls does it. We could have a spectral passageway that introduces the basic mechanics and how to craft/repair, then the bird takes you away to Valheim.