During the Xbox and Bethesda Games Showcase Extended Showcase, Coffee Stain Publishing, and developer Iron Gate Studio announced that its open-world survival game Valheim will release on Xbox Series and Xbox One in spring 2023. The game will also be available in Xbox Game Pass for Xbox at launch and on Xbox Game Pass for PC sometime this fall. The game is currently available on Steam.
Iron Gate Studio co-founder Henrik Tornqvist commented on the announcement in a press release, saying:
“We’re beyond delighted to see the world of Valheim and our amazing community open up to even more people, and let our PC Vikings team up with their console shield brothers and sisters in the near future. None of this would be possible without the incredible teams at Piktiv and Fishlabs who are continuing to work tirelessly on the Microsoft Store and Xbox ports, enabling us to focus on the Mistlands update and our exciting journey through Early Access.”
Coffee Stain Publishing vice president Albert Safstrom:
“Since its launch we’ve wanted to make Valheim as accessible to as many people as possible—regardless of what platform they’re playing on—and it’s so satisfying to see everyone’s hard work come to fruition with these Microsoft and Xbox announcements. With Piktiv and Fishlabs supporting these efforts, and the Iron Gate Studio team steaming ahead with our next major update this year, we’re so excited to open the gates of Valheim to PC Game Pass users soon, as well as Xbox players for the first time in 2023.”
Additional details via the publisher can be seen below:
Both the upcoming Microsoft Store and Xbox console releases will have full cross-play support on launch, allowing Vikings to build, fight and survive together in the dangerous Norse afterlife, whether they’re playing on Steam, Microsoft Store or console.
Developers Piktiv and Fishlabs have been enlisted to lead development of the Microsoft Store release and upcoming 2023 Xbox port to ensure new PC customers and Xbox users can enjoy the best performance possible on launch, while also allowing Iron Gate Studio to continue the smooth development of the core Valheim experience and its next major update milestones.
The news comes in a momentous year for Valheim, which will see a highly-anticipated major update of the Mistlands biome in Q3, having recently surpassed ten million copies sold just over one year since its Steam Early Access release in February. The challenging exploration and survival game developed by Swedish indie developer Iron Gate Studio took the gaming world by storm last year, with an all-time player peak of 502,000 players exploring the Viking afterlife.
Since launch, Valheim‘s sense of wonder and exploration has developed a passionate community that have rallied around the game, sharing fan art and in-game builds online and celebrating the game’s unique atmosphere and building system, while it has also received industry acclaim including GDCA’s Best Debut and Audience Award, PC Gamer’s 2021 Game of the Year and PCGamesN’s 2021 Best Multiplayer and Most Surprising Game.
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