Releasing in early access earlier this month, Valheim is certainly one of the biggest unexpected gaming hits of 2021 so far. With it currently averaging around 300,000 concurrent players, its timing has perhaps capitalized most from the recent resurgence in popularity for Rust. Yes, they are different games, but it’s hard to deny that they do share somewhat similar mechanics.
However, if you are currently enjoying your Viking adventure, you might want to take note. Why? Following an official Twitter post by Valheim’s developer, they strongly urge all players to back-up their save files. Like… Right now!
Valheim Devs Warn of ‘World Destroying’ Bug
In order to keep the gameplay and environments fresh, Valheim utilizes a procedurally generated world, meaning that, in most cases, every new game presents you with a new world to explore. With the discovery of a new bug found in the code, however, it has the potential to completely corrupt your saved files. While the exact cause of the issue has not yet been identified, it is believed that hard closing your game (ALT+F4) might be one of the major contributors (possibly something to do with save data being written during that time). We should note that this is not 100% confirmed and is only currently being cited as a potential contributing factor.
As such, Valheim has officially issued all players with a very terse warning that, so as to not lose their progress, backing up the save file data is an exceptionally good idea!
in windows Worlds & characters are saved in C:\Users\Username\AppData\LocalLow\IronGate\Valheim\
— Richard Svensson (@dvoidis) February 12, 2021
How Can I Do This?
Fortunately, ‘@dvoidis‘, the game’s developer, has posted on his Twitter account where you can locate the save data in order to make your safety back-up copy (which you can check out above). – Until this issue is resolved, however, it might be well worth both your time and effort to ensure you do this regularly and perhaps even have multiple back-ups prepared just in case you make progress and forget to do it as often as you (probably) should.
Rest assured though, as soon as this bug is discovered, it will be fixed. For the moment though, ‘back-up regular, back-up often!’.
You can, incidentally, check out the game’s official Steam website via the link here where, for £15.49, this does look more than a little bit of inexpensive fun!
What do you think? – Let us know in the comments!
