Survival game Valheim has sold more than 3 million copies in less than three weeks, an astonishing figure that may be the most rapid rise in popularity in recent gaming history, Valheim surpassed Dota 2 to become the second most played game on Steam. With a peak of 502,000 players, it is less than Dota's peak, but still behind the gaming giant Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. (Far behind: CS:GO has over 1.1 million players online.)

Defying many conventional wisdom about survival games as a whole, Valheim's PvE emphasis and robust building mechanics draw a diverse group of players. Iron Gate AB is a small studio with only five people, but this is a huge success." We felt it would sell quite well, at least to sustain us. But to become a million seller and now sell 2 million copies is something we could never have imagined," Henrik Törnqvist, co-founder of Iron Gate Studios, said in an interview with PC Gamer earlier this week. We're very excited to be working on this game," said Henrik Törnqvist, co-founder of Iron Gate Studios, in an interview with PC Gamer earlier this week.

We spoke to the developers about how Zelda and Skyrim had a bigger impact on Valheim than any other survival game, and thus definitely contributed to Valheim's success. The game breaks the mold of early access survival games, eliminating tedious elements such as repair bills and starvation. [Not that it isn't difficult, as Emma Matthews found out when she tangled with the game's giant, tree-like second boss.

If development goes smoothly, the game has a pretty bright future ahead of it, but even if it's slow going, the modding scene is already thriving. Speaking of the future, we also got some details on the upcoming Valheim update in Iron Gate's vague development roadmap.