Valheim sells three million in less than three weeks

(Image credit: Iron Gate Studios)

You may have noticed Valheim in the last few weeks, the co-op survival game that appeared out of nowhere and is now on-track to become Steam's fastest-growing hit of all time. Less than three weeks after launching into early access, developer Iron Gate AB announced that "Valheim has now been purchased by over three million brave Vikings looking to survive the 10th world of the Yggdrasil—or die trying—probably crushed by a falling tree."

This is, apparently, the equivalent of "74,319 longhouses stuffed with Vikings singing songs."

It's hard to put a finger on exactly why Valheim's struck such a nerve. It's certainly been popular among streamers, and is currently the 7th most-played game on the platform, surpassing CS:GO, Dota 2, Minecraft and Rust (for now, at least). But the pace isn't slowing down, and in the last 24 hours its peak playercount was a wild 390,000.

Whatever the reasons behind its success, Valheim is a very good game indeed: one that, as our Fraser put it, rejects the boring bits of survival games.

Rich is a games journalist with 15 years' experience, beginning his career on Edge magazine before working for a wide range of outlets, including Ars Technica, Eurogamer, GamesRadar+, Gamespot, the Guardian, IGN, the New Statesman, Polygon, and Vice. He was the editor of Kotaku UK, the UK arm of Kotaku, for three years before joining PC Gamer. He is the author of a Brief History of Video Games, a full history of the medium, which the Midwest Book Review described as "[a] must-read for serious minded game historians and curious video game connoisseurs alike."