Originally posted by esbenmf:

The bosses are the reason for Odin having put you into Valheim in the first place. Hardly superfluous according to the lore.

True, on the other hand nothing in the lore says you must kill them in a certain order and must kill them before exploiting biome X. The lore would be completely satisfied if you explored and exploited all the biomes, mastered all the tech, and then turned around and wiped out the bosses in any random order as long as the job is done.

The lore gives you a job to do. The railroaded implementation forces you to do that job in a certain way and in a certain order. Mind numbingly boring handheld braindead.. well.. I could go on but you get the idea.