Here is my neutral opinion about the whole game, As somebody who played the game to progress and find adventure, the game was quite rough. The exploration and progression is built in a way to waste time. When you play the game with no guide and "explore" it is a very awkward experience. So I am a unguided newb I am in the meadows you find a forest pretty quick you realize it is stronger but not too bad. Once you get to the forest the "Open world." Closes down. It's like a MMO map, certain areas you are suppose to be in and others you are not then once you open the guide you realize the game is quite flat and linear. Suddenly you realize it's gimmicks everywhere. You realize you go from zone to zone and kill the bosses to progress. I liked going to new areas and fighting new monsters on new terrain types but the process is very slow.

The progression is very linear and you have all this other junk slowing you down, High crafting costs on every equipment for no reason, slow ore transport with massive bottlenecks for no reason. It's like the game wants to not let you progress by boring you. The game feels like a 5-15 hour adventure bloated to a much longer adventure.

Also bosses are quite lame, very gimmicky at times and boring to beat, I was ready to beat Moder watched a video so I wouldn't get killed by whatever gimmick the boss had, but the fight just looked so lame I just never fought Moder. Going through new areas was fun I admit but it was such a rare and slow process. Fighting the enemies across the lands was much more fun than the bosses for me.

But you see, I didn't play the game right. I watched a few streams of people playing the game on twitch, they don't play anywhere near how I play. They are building a nice looking house they are happy chopping trees and mining away sailing around ect. For me it's like why do I need to mine more build more travel through the same areas more? One of the last things I did was relocate my base near a plains and mountain so mining wouldn't be as bad but it's still slower than heck. I just enjoyed the adventure aspect of the game, I didn't care for all the transport building/mining, a simple mode that reduces crafting costs would of done the trick, or teleport ore. Whats so fun about walking/sailing and the cart is so annoying to use it is not even a pleasant walk. The silver was such a annoyance to get down even though I spent even more time on the base relocation.

Valheim is the one game I hate crafting equipment in because it takes too long and the exploration is very locked up by how well geared you are and even if you can survive in an area they boss locked everything good. I killed a fuling with only beating the first boss and the fight was 1 parry for me to win the fight I only killed one because whats the point when he doesn't drop anything you can use until you grind tons of other things and beat the bosses.

I would say the game just wasn't what I was looking for. I still had fun but I am glad I stopped when I did, there really isn't much after Moder anyways, at least for now. I will say it was quite good for beta/early access, the game might clean up quite well.