After much teasing and anticipation, Valheim finally delivered its Mistlands update late last year, and now the game’s devs are looking forward to the future. In a new development update, Iron Gate Studio teased the game’s next new biome, the Ashlands. Located at the far southern end of the map, the Ashlands are described as the “land of the dead” with “quite a volcanic nature.” So, skeletons, zombies, and lava – oh boy! Iron Gate shared to following two pieces of Ashlands enemy concept art.

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　　The Ashlands update is still in pre-production, so it might not arrive for a while, but Iron Gate is promising they won’t be as secretive as they were with Mistlands.

　　“When it comes to development itself, there is something we would like to do very differently this time. With the Mistlands, we were very secretive. This is great for those who want to discover as much as possible for themselves (which is the main reason why we kept so much hidden), but it’s also not very transparent. Therefore, our ambition with the development of the Ashlands is to show you a lot more of the process. 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 gotten.”

　　Thankfully, there will be things to keep players busy while they wait for the Ashlands to arrive. Iron Gate is promising new difficulty and accessibility settings, as well as something called Hildir’s Quest, which should offer some new challenges… and hairdos.

　　“We have talked about adding some new difficulty settings, and we are working on something which we’re currently calling Hildir’s Quest! […] Hildir’s Quest will also have some other fun things, like an additional NPC (the eponymous Hildir herself) and a way for you to re-style your existing characters’ hair! […] Another thing we want to do in the future is to improve the accessibility of the game. This is long overdue, but we want to finally add some options so that more people can enjoy Valheim.”

　　Finally, Iron Gate has been working on some new outfits, to be added soon…

　　Valheim can be played on PC, with an Xbox version slated to launch early this year.