It does have grind, but it kind a good grind ya know? It hides it well. You do a lot of exploring in new biomes to find new resources and then load them up on a boat or pullcart and head back to base to turn them into ingots and then gear.

Valheim's most popular mod "Valheim PLUS" lets you easily tweak drop rates for ores and other resources so you can basically make the grind intensity a matter of choice.