Source-checkedGameplay & overhauls

Bear Taming

by nick008 · for Valheim

Tame, breed & ride vanilla Valheim bears! Craft a Bear Saddle, use mounted attacks and raise bear cubs with star support.

1.2KDownloads
35d agoLast updated
BepInExLoaders
ThunderstoreSource

About Bear Taming

From Thunderstore

Tame, breed & ride vanilla Valheim bears! Craft a Bear Saddle, use mounted attacks and raise bear cubs with star support.

Bear Taming – Tame, Breed & Ride

A focused Valheim mod by nick008 that makes the vanilla Bear / Bjorn tameable, breedable and ridable.

Features

  • Vanilla Bears can be tamed.
  • Tamed Bears can use Valheim's normal Follow / Stay behaviour.
  • Tamed Bears can breed and produce bear cubs.
  • Bear cubs grow into adults and are protected from the Butcher knife while young.
  • Star levels are supported.
  • Bears use their own craftable Bear Saddle.
  • The Bear Saddle uses the vanilla Lox Saddle model / texture and riding behaviour as its visual and technical base, but it is a separate item made specifically for Bears.
  • Mounted Bears can use two of Bjorn's normal attacks.
  • A special riding workaround keeps 2-star Bears moving correctly while mounted.
  • No Jotunn dependency is required.

Bear Saddle

The mod does not require the player to unlock the normal Lox Saddle first.

The mod adds a dedicated Bear Saddle. Its appearance is based on Valheim's vanilla Lox Saddle, but it is registered as a separate item for Bears and does not replace the normal Lox Saddle.

The Bear Saddle recipe unlocks after the player has discovered all three required materials:

  • Bronze Nails
  • Bear Hide
  • Fine Wood

These materials are obtainable during Meadows / Black Forest progression, so Bear riding can be accessed much earlier than the normal Plains Lox Saddle progression.

Bear Saddle recipe

Craft at a Workbench:

  • 20x Bronze Nails
  • 5x Bear Hide
  • 10x Fine Wood

Controls while riding

  • Mount: Left Alt + E
  • Move / steer: normal Valheim movement controls
  • Attack 1: Left Mouse Button
  • Attack 2: Middle Mouse Button / press the mouse wheel

Normal E remains available for the usual pet / Follow-Stay interaction.

Food

Bears can eat:

  • Blueberries
  • Honey
  • Raw Meat
  • Deer Meat

Default timings

  • Taming: 25 minutes
  • Fed duration: 5 minutes
  • Bear cub growth: 33 minutes 20 seconds
  • Pregnancy duration: 90 seconds
  • Pregnancy chance: 66%
  • Nearby bear breeding limit: 5

Riding notes / known visual limitation

The Bear riding setup is adapted from Valheim's vanilla Lox saddle/riding system. Version 1.0.1 improves the rider anchor so the player follows the saddle much more closely, especially while sprinting.

Because Bjorn was not originally designed as a mount and uses different animations and body proportions than a Lox, the player or saddle may still show minor visual movement or clipping during some animations. This is visual only and does not affect riding functionality.

Valheim scales a 2-star Bear to approximately 1.50x size. At that scale the mounted Bear can become stuck in place while its running animation continues. This mod therefore temporarily caps a mounted 2-star Bear to a known-working 1.25x riding scale. Its original size is restored automatically after dismounting.

Performance

Version 1.0.1 removes repeated global creature scans that could cause periodic micro-stutters while moving through the world. The Bear setup is now handled without continuously scanning all loaded tameable creatures and MonsterAI objects.

Installation

If you used the previous tameable_and_breadable_and_ridable_bear package, uninstall it before installing Bear Taming to avoid loading two copies of the mod.

Install with a Thunderstore-compatible mod manager, or manually copy:

nick008-Bear_Taming.dll

into your:

Valheim/BepInEx/plugins/

folder.

Requirements

  • BepInExPack Valheim
  • Valheim with the vanilla Bear / Bjorn creature
  • No vanilla Lox Saddle unlock is required; craft the dedicated Bear Saddle instead.

Highlights

From source data

Loaders

Runs on BepInEx.

Footprint

Rated a light load on a server.

Last update

Its author last shipped an update 35d ago.

Bear Taming on Nxeon

From our catalogue
One-click install
Supported on Nxeon Valheim servers, for BepInEx servers. We download it from Thunderstore, place it, and restart the server.
Server type needed
BepInEx
Server load
light
Smallest plan we suggest
Valheim — 4 GB (4 GB RAM). This follows our own load rating above, not a benchmark.
Latest build
1.0.3, released 2026-09-30

Game versions by loader

LoaderGame versionsNewest
BepInEx

From 4 recorded builds of Bear Taming.

Recent builds

BuildReleasedGame versionsLoaders
1.0.32026-09-30n/aBepInEx
1.0.22026-09-24n/aBepInEx
1.0.12026-09-24n/aBepInEx
1.0.02026-09-23n/aBepInEx

Dependencies

Declared by the newest build that lists any. Required ones are installed with it on one-click installs.

Run Bear Taming on a Valheim server

Pick a server or deploy a new one above; it is installed in one click.

What kind of mod it is

From the catalog
Listed on Thunderstore as “Content”

Gameplay & overhauls

New mechanics, content and overhauls that change how the game plays.

Compatibility

Game
Valheim
Loaders
BepInEx
Requires
One-click install needs a BepInEx server.

Verified at the source

  • ✓ThunderstoreOfficial listing, checked 2026-10-01Open ↗
  • ✓Authornick008, as published on Thunderstore
  • ✓LicenseNot published by the sourceFree

Bear Taming, answered

Generated from the mod’s own source data.

Which loaders does it support?

BepInEx.

Is it free?

Yes. Bear Taming is free to download from Thunderstore.

How do I add it to my Nxeon server?

Use “Add to a server” on this page, or open NxLabs from your dashboard. We install it, restart your server and switch it on.

NxLabs

Run Bear Taming on a Valheim server.

Deploy in about a minute from $9.99 a month, then add Bear Taming in one click.