I don't think it will be eternally early access, but it could be in that state for a good while. I think a lot of the issues the game has are thinks that just have to be ironed out and polished. I think its just that updates come slowly that will keep it under "Early access" for most of it's time. Kind of like Phasmophobia where the game is very enjoyable but you know that the devs are probably unhappy with a lot of little things.

Valheim is functional enough for me that I don't really think about it being early access that much. I think I've only ran into two buggy things that bothered me.