The author of Valheim admitted: early access was the only way out, the money ran out

Richard Svensson, the creator of Valheim, explained why the game was released in Steam Early Access in 2021.In an interview with GamesIndustry.biz, he admitted that he simply ran out of money for further development.“Releasing in early access was the only sensible thing to do at that moment,” he said.

From a single project to a hit

In February 2021, Svensson himself worked almost single-handedly on Valheim.In the first month after its release, the game sold more than five million copies, and today sales have reached 17 million.Despite the success, he is in no hurry to greatly expand the team, although the current scale of production is not comparable to what it was at the start of early access.

Why wouldn't he give up early access?

Svensson emphasizes that he would release the game in early access and without financial problems.According to him, without such a model, Valheim would never have become so big: the ability to launch the project gradually and communicate directly with the audience helped to understand what people really expect.

After the release of version 1.0, development did not stop.The team continues to release updates, but now they are mainly focused on bug fixes and balance.We reviewed the latest patch in a separate article.