As announced in January (opens in new tab), Iron Gate Studio is working on additional difficulty settings for its Viking survival game Valheim. Today, Jonathan Smårs, lead designer of Valheim, took to Twitter to give a brief rundown of what's planned, from a creative mode that lets you build without resources, to a peaceful "casual" mode, to a hardcore setting that will brutally punish the bravest (or most foolhardy) players He gave a brief overview of what is being planned.

Smårs says these settings are not final, but a quick read of the posted video gives a text description of the various world modifiers and difficulty presets the Valheim team is working on. Here is the current status of the new modes in development (subject to change):

Casual Mode: In Casual Mode, monsters will not attack until provoked and there will be no raids on your base. Resources are more plentiful, and players do not lose equipment items or skills upon death.

Hammer mode (creative mode): All buildings can be constructed for free. There are no raids on bases and monsters do not attack until you provoke them. Other difficulty settings are normal.

Immersive mode: No map (!) and no portals (!). and portals are not available (!). So you have to use your wits to figure out where you are in the world.

Easy mode: Combat is easier and there are fewer assaults on your base.

Hard mode: Combat is more difficult and monsters attack the base more often.

Hardcore mode: Combat will be harder and monsters will raid your base more often. Upon death, any items or skills you possess will be permanently lost. There is no map and portals are not available.

All of this sounds great to me. While you can already play a sort of creative mode using the Valheim cheat (open in a new tab) and console commands, an official creative mode, which Smooze calls "Hammer Mode," would be a great addition to the game.

Also, for players who want a very punishing and difficult challenge, there is no access to the world map, no portals for fast travel, and even death would mean losing everything completely.

Smårs' video clip (which opens in a new tab) also shows sliders that allow players to individually adjust the difficulty of the battle, the desperation (to lose or not to lose when dying), the resource rate, and the enemy assault rate. Also shown are checkboxes to toggle portal restrictions (e.g., you cannot bring ore through portals by default), build costs, map display, and passive enmities on or off.

According to Smothers, these settings can be changed at any time during the game, allowing players to play in creative mode and build a huge base for free, or switch to hardcore mode and defend the base against raids. These new difficulty settings can also be applied to existing worlds that have been previously played. In multiplayer sessions, the difficulty settings will be applied globally, Smårs said.

This can be seen in the video below. However, it is currently unknown when this update will be applied to Valheim.