Valheim's Hearth & Home is the Viking survival game's latest update, featuring tons of new content for its building mechanics. Fortifying and building bases is a core mechanic in Valheim, encouraging creativity and defense against the world's dangerous monsters. Hearth & Home added substantial content to Valheim, with most of its fixes, updates, and new content focused on building mechanics. Players can now craft additional items, which received updated effects and usability in gameplay.

Developer Iron Gate originally touted Hearth & Home as one of many Valheim updates to be implemented in 2021. However, the pandemic and Valheim's wild popularity caused delays, with Hearth & Home likely being the only sizable update players will see this year. Thankfully, Hearth & Home supplies several new activities and items to try out, sustaining the game for the time being.

Related: How Valheim's Roadmap Hints At Coming Story Updates

Valheim's Hearth & Home update introduced new building pieces and furniture to make Valheim's longhouses feel more like home. New Darkwood buildings pieces can now be constructed, including shingle roofs, support beams, and new decorations. The expanded selection of constructible Darkwood items will certainly help players improve and expand pre-existing builds. To craft Darkwood, players will need to find a tar pit and gather some material to craft these new items. Valheim Hearth & Home also added a stone throne and steamy hot tub, allowing players to turn their hellish afterlife into the envy of Asgard.

Valheim's Hearth & Home Added New Cooking And Building Materials

Valheim Hearth Home Iron Cooking Station

Players looking to make the most of Crystals can now craft Crystal Walls and turn their rustic hut into a palace fit for a warrior. Players can gather crystal from Valheim's Stone Golems, commonly found in Mountain Biomes. Crystal is a material previously used for crafting battleaxes but can now fulfill more domestic uses. Valheim's Hearth & Home also added a Cartography Table that players can activate to share map data. This addition is beneficial for players on public and private servers, eliminating the need for lengthy typed coordinates or scrambled descriptions over Discord. New stacks are also available to show off resources and treasures.

Iron Gate reworked several cooking systems with Valheim Hearth & Home, adding several options to the Cauldron, an Oven, and an iron cooking station that's required to cook some meats. The Cauldron has received a spice rack, butcher table, pots, and pans that allow players to make more recipes than ever before. These foods will now specifically rejuvenate health or stamina, encouraging Vikings to prioritize certain foods over others depending on their playstyle. Players can use Valheim's Oven for baking bread and pies, which can be extremely useful in deadly situations. Finally, there's also a universally useful Obliterator that can destroy any unwanted or extra items to help handle clutter and remove unneeded resources.

The update was released later than expected, but also brought new enemies and updated pet and combat systems alongside the new building options. Valheim's Hearth & Home update is available now for all owners of the game.

Next: Every Mead In Valheim (& What They're Good For)