LivingWorld

Living World — Hardcore dynamic survival for Valheim

The tenth world was never meant to be empty. Living World fills it with people: settlers you win over and lead, camps that grow and die whether you're watching or not, bandits who come for what you've built, and a survival layer where food, water, sleep and winter all matter.

You don't just build a base anymore. You found a town, and the town lives.

> Public beta. Back up your worlds before installing. Bug reports and ideas shape what comes next (see Support).

The idea

Valheim is beautiful and lonely. Living World asks: what if the world went on without you?

• People live here. Wandering traders travel the land. Camps sit in the Meadows and the Black Forest, each with its own name, people, food stores and fortunes.
• The world moves on its own. Every day, every camp eats, works, grows, gets sick, gets raided, or collapses, even if you never visit. A camp you ignored for a week might be a thriving settlement, or a bandit hideout.
• You build something that outlasts your trip to the next biome. Your village keeps working while you're out: clearing land, raising buildings, hunting, farming, crafting better tools, and defending itself.
• Every choice has a cost. Help a camp and it trusts you. Rob it and every camp hears about it. Tax your people and the treasury fills, but they'll resent it.
• Surviving is harder. You need to eat and drink, not just for buffs. You need sleep. Winter comes, crops freeze, and the nights are deadly cold.

How a game plays out

Day 1 — Alone. You land like always, but now there are hunger, thirst and energy bars beside your health. Drink from a lake, eat, find somewhere to sleep. Strangers with names walk the roads: wandering traders.

The first week — A village. You build a Village Totem. The land around it is now your village. Put out a chest with some food and a bed. Talk to a wandering trader, bring them a gift, earn their trust, and ask them to stay. They move in, take a trade, and get to work.

The village grows. Your settlers clear the trees, stumps and rocks from town, level the ground and start building from a real plan: a workshop with the workbench, longhouses with beds for everyone, a storehouse for the chests. They gather, chop, mine and hunt, haul it all home, and craft their own tools from what they've stored. They work out what they need next and go get it.

The world around you. You find camps on the map. Some welcome you: trade with them, take their jobs, help them when bandits attack, and maybe convince one of their people to join you. Some are already bandit camps, and they'll raid you.

Your call. A rich settlement sits a short walk away with full chests. You can be its best friend, or you can take everything it has. Pick the fight and the whole town takes up arms. Win, and it's yours to strip bare. It'll lie in ruins for days, and the other camps will remember.

The long game. Your village follows Valheim's own progression. As you beat bosses, your town can house more people, and as new materials reach the village chests, your settlers learn new things to build and craft. Then winter comes, and you find out if you prepared.

Features in detail

🏘️ Your village

• Village Totem (hammer → Misc, 10 wood + 4 resin) founds a village around it. You're its leader.
• Village screen (F7): every villager's trade, mood, needs and current task; a combined view of every chest in town; and a members list where you invite friends and choose what they're allowed to do. Built your village yourself? Turn off Villagers build the town and they'll leave the building to you and just do their jobs. The Buildings tab shows the town plan; the leader can move, turn or remove buildings before they're started.
• Taxes and a treasury: villagers pay in daily. Fair taxes keep them content; heavy taxes make them unhappy, and unhappy villagers work slower.
• Village jobs: your own people post requests you can fill for a reward.

🧑‍🌾 Settlers with real jobs

• Seven trades: gatherer, woodcutter, miner, hunter, farmer, cook, guard. Change anyone's trade at any time.
• They use real Valheim tools: an axe for trees, a pickaxe for rock, crafted at the village workbench from the game's own recipes and the materials in your chests. The woodcutter and miner keep upgrading theirs.
• They get stronger: they craft and wear armor, shields and better weapons, guards first, and gain health as their fighting skill grows. Give them gear yourself and they'll wear it too.
• They run the smelter: ore and coal in, bars out, and bronze made at the forge.
• A daily rhythm: work by day, gather at the fire in the evening, sleep in their own bed at night.
• They move like people: they walk about town, use doors and stairs, give way to each other in doorways, and only run from danger or after prey.
• Guards fight for their home. When an enemy shows up, the alarm goes out and your guards go after it. Everyone else keeps working unless the enemy comes for them; then the armed fight back and the rest run for home. The wounded fall back to heal. Fighting skill improves with every fight.