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Valheim‘s latest update is now available on the survival game’s public test branch, letting extra-adventurous players get their hands on frost caves, full controller support, and Steam Deck support before the update rolls out for everyone.
Valve’s Steam Deck, a handheld PC, is due to start rolling out at the end of the month, and several games have been patched over the past few weeks to better support the device. Valheim is following in kind, with full controller support, a pause feature in singleplayer, and other UI optimisations designed for smaller screens.
In terms of new content, the frost caves are the big addition. These dungeons will appear in unexplored areas, three new enemies, a new weapon called “Flesh Rippers”, and lots of new armour, crafting materials and so on. You can find the full patch notes here.
As should be obvious by its presence on the test branch, this update could be unstable. It’s specifically designed to gather feedback and detail on any bugs, which you can share on the game’s Steam subforum. The update is also not backwards compatible with the default branch, meaning you should make backups of your existing save files before you switch to the test branch.
If none of that puts you off and you still want to check it out, right-click on Valheim on Steam and go to Properties. In the new window, select the ‘betas’ tab and type in the code “yesimadebackups”. You’ll then be able to select the Public Test branch from the dropdown.
Developers Iron Gate spoke about a lot of these changes, along with the coming Mistlands biome, earlier this month.