Valheim Hits 1.0: Deep North, Crossplay, and a 116,000-Player Launch Spike
After more than five years in Early Access, Iron Gate Studio’s viking survival hit Valheim exited Early Access into full 1.0 on September 9, 2026. The free update adds the long-teased Deep North biome, an endgame zone roughly the size of Meadows that generates at the northern edge of every world, along with new enemies (Gammeltrolls and Elakingar), a grappling hook, ice-skating across frozen lakes, three new armor tiers and new Nord weapons.
Valheim also launched simultaneously on PS5 and Switch 2 with full crossplay against PC players, turning what used to be a PC-only survival game into a genuine cross-platform release overnight. You can grab it on the official Valheim Steam page.
17 Million Copies and a Quadrupled Player Count
The numbers back up how big this launch is. Valheim has now sold more than 17 million copies total, and concurrent players roughly quadrupled overnight, jumping from about 26,000 the day before 1.0 to a 116,000 peak within 24 hours of the update going live. Iron Gate creative director Robin Eyre summed up the milestone: “Approaching 1.0 feels equal parts exciting and anxious as we’ve worked hard to make Deep North a worthy conclusion to the Valheim journey.”
There is also a pricing angle worth knowing about: Valheim’s price is rising from its long-standing $19.99 Early Access tag to $29.99 now that it has hit full release.
Buy In Before You Need a Card
If you have been waiting for the “finished” version of Valheim before jumping in, this is the moment, and doing it with a Steam Wallet Code (Global) from Dragon4Deals means you can buy it (plus the price bump is already baked into what you are prepaying) without touching a card online. Playing on PS5 instead? A PlayStation Network gift card covers the PS5 release the same way, and our full Steam gift card lineup has region options if Global is not the right fit.
With crossplay live across PC, PS5 and Switch 2, Valheim’s 1.0 launch is shaping up to be one of the biggest survival-game moments of 2026 — a good excuse to reunite an old server with friends on whatever platform they are on now.
