Valheim 'Hearth & Home' Expansion Will Completely Rework Food, Developers Say

A new video from the official Iron Gate game studio YouTube channel has revealed one of the ways the developers will be changing how food works in Valheim.

The video was published on Aug. 9 and detailed one precise shift in a host of reworks heading to the game. These changes are meant to take place with the launch of the upcoming Valheim expansion, Hearth & Home. As its name suggests, it will focus on revamping the way players approach everything to do with homesteading in-game—i.e.: food, building structures, and so on.

Valheim "Hearth & Home" Food System Changes Explained

According to the video, food will now be sorted into three distinct categories—indicated by different colored fork icons. Each color indicates a different primary stat that the selected food will buff:

• Red fork icons increase health.
• Yellow fork icons increase stamina.
• White fork icons equally increases both.

For example, the red-forked "Black Soup" gives 50 Health and 10 Stamina while the now yellow-forked "Blood Pudding" gives 70 Stamina and 14 Health. White-forked Wolf and Boar Jerky offer an even split of 25 and 20 Health/Stamina, respectively. This will apply to both new and old food items available in the expansion.

Unfortunately, with the addition of new food, the developers saw fit to make a cut somewhere. Certain old items, such as Cooked Lox Meat, will be nerfed in the new patch. Whether a new item will be taking its place on the food chain or not remains to be seen.

The "food bar"—the thin, often-multicolored bar to the direct left of the Health bar—will be removed in Hearth & Home. Instead, players will be able to see exactly how much time they have left for each food buff on the item's actual icon to the far bottom left of the screen. It will still begin to flash when halfway through.

According to the developers, the new system will allow for more "creative" and "varied" playstyles. Builders can choose to solely buff Stamina to build for longer while adventurers can add some health into the mix to keep themselves up during long expeditions.

More information will be revealed in the next video release on the channel.

Hearth & Home is expected to launch sometime during Q3 2021. This period stretches to the end of September, so players shouldn't have to wait much longer at the time of writing.