‘Valheim’ teases major Ashlands update with creepy concept art

Valheim developer Iron Gate has teased the game’s upcoming Ashlands update, which will take players to a volcanic “land of the dead” with new enemies to defeat.

In a blog post published today (January 16), Iron Gate revealed that the game’s next major biome update, the Ashlands, is in pre-production.

While Iron Gate is still “trying to work out the feeling we want the biome to have,” the developer has shared that Valheim‘s southern Ashlands region will be “a land of the dead, as well as a place with quite a volcanic nature.”

The post also included two pieces of concept art for the Ashlands’ enemies, The Charred and Morgen. While The Charred are depicted as skeletal humanoids with numerous heads, Morgen appears to be sown together with a variety of bones and body parts.

Additionally, the studio outlined plans to be more transparent with the development process of Ashlands and show “a lot more of the process,” admitting that it was “very secretive” with Valheim‘s prior Mistlands update, which launched last month.

“This will mean you will see things in their early stages, and maybe even things that won’t end up making it into the game at all, but you will also hopefully have a better understanding of how far along the development has [come],” explained Iron Gate. “We’ll be trying this out for the Ashlands development period and see how it goes.”

Outside of Ashlands, Iron Gate has shared that it has “some fun things” planned before it launches – including crossplay, new difficulty settings, and more clothing options. Additionally, the studio would like to hear from anyone with a disability regarding ways that Valheim could be more accessible.

In other gaming news, Obsidian’s Josh Sawyer has called for the Game Developers Conference to become “more accessible” for smaller developers.