Valheim 1.0: the Deep North update is out
Early access ended September 9, 2026. The Viking survival game that sold millions for $19.99 while unfinished now has its last biome, its ending, achievements — and a new $29.99 price tag. Your old world survives. Your old cheats don't.
What shipped with 1.0
The headline is the Deep North, the last biome on the map and the actual ending of the game. Iron Gate has described it as carrying "2.5 biomes worth of content" — it's both the final region and the finale of the whole saga. Community documentation points at a dungeon called the Gates of Mörkhalla, entered from fortress-like structures with an Intricate Key. If you were waiting for the game to be "done" before sailing north, September 9 was that day.
Not everything is about the new biome. 1.0 also brings the game's first achievements, cuts the microstutters that hit when zones load in and out of memory, and speeds up saving. And after five and a half years of early access that started in February 2021, the game now sells outside Steam too: the Mac App Store, Humble, and the Microsoft Store all carry it since 1.0, alongside Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PS5 and Switch 2 versions.
One thing 1.0 does not touch, per the official FAQ: the Ocean biome. There's some new content elsewhere in the world, but nothing Ocean-specific.
New price as of the 1.0 release, verified against Steam's API on launch day and re-checked September 25, 2026 — still $29.99, discount_percent: 0. Anyone who bought during early access updates for free. Console and store availability may vary by region.
Your old world still works — with one catch
Iron Gate's official 1.0 FAQ settles the question every returning player has: old saves stay where you left them and keep working. Your world receives the new content, but biome generation only behaves properly in areas you haven't explored yet. If you've already charted half the map, the Deep North in that world will generate fresh — the rest of your territory stays as you built it. The studio still recommends a fresh start for the best experience, and says you can head straight for the Deep North if you insist, but restarting is their advice.
The download is about 4.3 GiB on most platforms (around 3.0 on Xbox One, roughly 6.5 for the Mac App Store and Microsoft Store builds).
⚠️ The achievement trap: most console commands — spawn being the example Iron Gate gives — permanently flag your character and world save as cheated. That lockout has no undo, and characters that used cheats before 1.0 are marked the same way. Spawned-in items carry the mark too: picking one up puts a clean character into a temporary cheat state until every cheated item is thrown out. If you care about achievements, play your pre-1.0 world with commands off.
Quick answers from the official FAQ
Do Early Access buyers pay again?
No — "your copy will simply update to a new version, same as always."
Was there a public test branch?
No. Iron Gate wanted everyone to hit 1.0 at the same time, which is why launch-day reports are only starting to come in now.
Do mods survive 1.0?
Officially there's no mod support and no Steam Workshop, so compatibility is on mod authors. Expect the usual breakage window after a major version bump.
Server size?
Unchanged: 1–10 players, same as early access.
More content after 1.0?
Bug fixes and quality-of-life work continue; Iron Gate says it's too early to promise anything beyond that.
The numbers on launch day
542,953 Steam reviews, 94% positive (Very Positive) — the all-time record as of Sep 9, 2026.
258,546 recent reviews, 95% positive — the recent window is bigger than most games' entire review count.
~137,900 concurrent players on Steam at the time of checking, hours after the 1.0 patch went live.
579 reviews for Halloween: The Game on its launch day yesterday, by comparison — Valheim's recent review traffic is more than four times that figure, a day before its own update. The scale difference between a new IP launch and a 1.0 of a beloved survival game is blunt.
Where it's sitting on Sep 25, 2026: 553,715 reviews at 94% positive (Very Positive), around 153,000 concurrent players. Two and a half weeks after 1.0 the count keeps climbing and the rating hasn't dropped a band.
Should you jump back in today?
If you quit during the Mistlands slog or never left Ashlands, 1.0 is the natural re-entry point: a fresh biome with an actual ending behind it, better load stutter, and achievements to chase. Rolling your old save forward works, but the "only unexplored areas regenerate" rule means veterans get the cleanest Deep North experience from a new world — and if you ever used spawn commands, a new clean character is the only way achievements stay reachable anyway.
If you've never played: $29.99 is five dollars more than early access cost, for a game whose review floor has sat above 90% positive through 540,000+ reviews. At 1–10 players with crossplay across PC and console, it remains the default answer to "which survival game do I buy" — now with an ending.