Hildir's Request Update

4:17 Hildir's Request was a mid-sized update to Valheim, released on Aug 22, 2023 as patch 0.217.14 on PC and Xbox at the same time. Its namesake is Hildir, sister of the merchant Haldor, who arrives in the Meadows having lost most of her stock on the way; recovering three chests from new mini-boss dungeons unlocks her wares of clothing and fireworks. The update's other half, and for many players the more important one, was World Modifiers: presets and sliders for difficulty, death penalty, resources, raids and portals, set from the world-selection screen (Iron Gate, patch 0.217.14; UpdateCrazy).

Quick facts

From Hildir's Quest

The update began as a side project of the Mistlands Update. While programmers and testers fixed the last Mistlands bugs in late 2022, Iron Gate Studio's artists designed new clothes, and those clothes became the seed of a smaller update the studio called Hildir's Quest. It was announced in January 2023 with an extra trader, a way to restyle existing characters and new difficulty settings (Iron Gate, Jan 16, 2023).

Monthly posts through spring 2023 revealed hair that stays visible under helmets and playtests of hard, easy and casual modes in February, Hildir's strangely empty camp in March, and her mini-bosses and a wide range of server settings in April. In May the studio warned that Hildir's Quest had only been a working title (Iron Gate, Feb 15, 2023; Iron Gate, Mar 22, 2023; Iron Gate, Apr 26, 2023; Iron Gate, May 24, 2023). It was built alongside the Ashlands Update and while the porting studios were still fixing the Xbox version launched that March (Platforms and System Requirements).

Public test

0:00 The update reached the public-test branch as patch 0.217.4 on Jun 16, 2023, on Steam and, through the Xbox Insider Hub, for Microsoft Store and PC Game Pass players (Iron Gate, Jun 16, 2023). Guides written that week already treated it as two updates in one: the trader and her dungeons, and the world modifiers.

The test lasted over two months. Patch 0.217.11 in August gave Hildir's cosmetic clothes a practical use after players asked for one, cutting the stamina cost of the hammer, hoe and cultivator. The same patch changed the new quick-stack function; after complaints, 0.217.13 restored it as a single held key that briefly opens the chest so the player can see what moves (Iron Gate, Aug 9, 2023; Iron Gate, Aug 16, 2023). Six days later the update went live.

Hildir and her dungeons

5:58 Hildir's camp stands in a Meadows clearing away from the starting island, and a map on her table marks three kinds of new location: Smouldering Tombs in the Black Forest, Howling Caverns in the Mountain and Sealed Towers in the Plains. Each holds a mini-boss carrying one of her chests, brass, silver or bronze. The chests weigh 200 and cannot pass through portals, and each one returned upgrades her camp and her stock.

6:44 The dungeons rework familiar places at higher difficulty. The tomb is a burial chamber full of elite skeletons, led by Brenna, a burning skeleton; the Howling Cavern is a Frost Cave from the Frost Caves Update packed with starred Ulvs and Cultists and ruled by Geirrhafa, a Cultist who casts ice; and the Sealed Tower is a doorless Plains tower that players climb by building up its outside, then fight down through to Zil and Thungr, a Fuling shaman riding a berserker. Details of each fight are on Hildir, Mountain Creatures and Plains Creatures.

5:06 Her stock is almost all clothing: ten hats and headscarves and fourteen dresses and tunics. Alongside them she sells a sparkler, an Iron pit for a fire pit that can stand on wooden floors, a Barber kit and, once the last chest is back, fireworks; the patch counts eight kinds, including the effects of throwing a Thunderstone or a Black core into a fire.

World modifiers

0:40 A World Modifiers button now sits on the world-selection screen. Presets set several options at once: Easy and Hard change combat and raid frequency; Hardcore adds permanent loss of items and skills on death, no map and no portals; Casual makes enemies passive until provoked, removes raids, raises resource yields and keeps equipped gear on death; Hammer mode makes building free once a recipe is known; and Immersive removes the map and portals. The game describes Normal as the intended, balanced way to play and recommends it for a first playthrough.

0:13 Beneath the presets are the individual settings: combat difficulty from Very easy to Very hard, a death penalty from Casual (equipped gear kept) to Hardcore (everything lost), resource rates from half to triple, raid frequency, four portal rules from unrestricted to none, and toggles for no build cost, passive enemies, raids scaled to each player's own progress and no map. New console commands set or reset the modifiers of an existing world (Console Commands, Cheats and Mods; Portals; Death and Corpse Runs).

Other additions

2:51 Two crafting extensions raised the Mistlands stations to level 3: the Vice for the Black forge and the Unfading candles for the Galdr table (Crafting Stations and Upgrades). The Barber station, built with Hildir's Barber kit, changes hair, beard and hair color mid-game, with eight new hairstyles and five beards, and hair and beards now show under helmets. Quality-of-life changes included the quick-stack button, manual choice of snap points with Q and E, copying a build piece, a skippable intro, and cylindrical rather than spherical build ranges that grow slightly when workbenches and forges are upgraded. All fire effects were redone, and four music tracks were added (Building and Structural Integrity; Soundtrack).

The Trial of Tyr

To celebrate the difficulty settings, Iron Gate launched its first speedrun contest on the same day. The Trial of Tyr ran until Sep 5, 2023 and asked players to kill every boss up to The Queen and mount the trophies, solo, without dying, on the Hard preset and a fixed seed, MX7L9GYcf2, with the whole run recorded; the prize was an engraved tankard (Iron Gate, Aug 22, 2023; PCGamesN). On Oct 10 Iron Gate announced the winner, the Chinese player Time Traveler, in 7 hours, 54 minutes and 22 seconds, ahead of ThreadMenace and Mr ADEL (Iron Gate, Oct 10, 2023).

Reception and aftermath

Reaction centered on the modifiers. GamingOnLinux ranked the update among the best of early access because it finally let players decide how hard their game should be, and coverage highlighted the Casual option, under which equipped gear is no longer dropped on death (GamingOnLinux; PCGamesN).

19:02 The trader half was seen as light: GlensGames' walkthrough summed it up as a fairly small patch whose mini-bosses, clothes and conveniences were nonetheless welcome. Without a new biome it did little for player numbers; SteamCharts shows an August 2023 peak of 32,946 concurrent players, below July's 34,558 (SteamCharts).

Hildir's Request remained the live version for almost nine months while Iron Gate built the Ashlands. A string of 0.217 patches through the autumn fixed bugs and balance, and 0.217.46 on Apr 10, 2024 upgraded the Unity engine and changed how dungeons and locations load, preparing the ground for the Ashlands update of May 2024 (Iron Gate, Apr 10, 2024).

Frequently asked questions

When did Hildir's Request come out? On Aug 22, 2023, as patch 0.217.14, released on PC and Xbox at the same time after a public test that began on Jun 16.

How do you unlock Hildir's wares? By recovering her three lost chests, brass, silver and bronze, from the mini-boss dungeons her map table marks. Each chest weighs 200 and cannot pass through a portal, and each one returned upgrades her camp and her stock.

What does Hildir sell? Mostly clothing: ten hats and headscarves and fourteen dresses and tunics. Alongside them are a sparkler, an Iron pit that lets a fire pit stand on wooden floors, a Barber kit and, once the last chest is back, eight kinds of firework.

What are World Modifiers? Presets and individual sliders, set from the world-selection screen, that change combat difficulty, the death penalty, resource rates, raid frequency, portal rules, build cost, enemy aggression and the map. The game describes Normal as the intended, balanced way to play.

What is the Casual preset? The gentlest of them: enemies do not attack unless provoked, there are no raids, resources are more plentiful and equipped gear is kept on death. Hardcore sits at the other end, with no map, no portals and the permanent loss of every skill and carried item (Death and Corpse Runs).

Sources

• Patch 0.217.14 - Hildir's Request, Iron Gate Studio (Steam news), Aug 22, 2023
• Patch 0.217.4 – Hildir's Request (Public Test), Iron Gate Studio (Steam news), Jun 16, 2023
• Patch 0.217.11 (Public Test), Iron Gate Studio (Steam news), Aug 9, 2023
• Patch 0.217.13 (Public Test), Iron Gate Studio (Steam news), Aug 16, 2023
• Development Blog: Quests and Concepts, Iron Gate Studio (Steam news), Jan 16, 2023
• Development Blog: Hold On To Your Hats!, Iron Gate Studio (Steam news), Feb 15, 2023
• Development Blog: Smoking Hot, Iron Gate Studio (Steam news), Mar 22, 2023
• Development blog: Fearsome Foes!, Iron Gate Studio (Steam news), Apr 26, 2023
• Development blog: Tests ahoy!, Iron Gate Studio (Steam news), May 24, 2023
• The Trial of Tyr, Iron Gate Studio (Steam news), Aug 22, 2023
• The Trial of Tyr – Announcing the Winners, Iron Gate Studio (Steam news), Oct 10, 2023
• Patch 0.217.46, Iron Gate Studio (Steam news), Apr 10, 2024
• Valheim Hildir's Request update is playable now - patch notes 0.217.4, PCGamesN, Jun 16, 2023
• New Valheim update Hildir's Request arrives, with a special challenge for the toughest among you, PCGamesN, Aug 23, 2023
• Major update for Valheim live now with world modifiers, new locations, new NPC, GamingOnLinux, Aug 22, 2023
• Valheim releases Hildir's Request update and hard mode speedrunning competition, Massively Overpowered, Aug 22, 2023
• Valheim Update 0.217.14 Patch Notes - August 22, 2023, UpdateCrazy, Aug 22, 2023
• Version history, Valheim Wiki (weirdgloop)
• Valheim Steam charts, SteamCharts
• Valheim: Hildir's Request Patch - New Features and New Dungeons, GlensGames, YouTube, Aug 29, 2023
• Ultimate Hildir's Request Valheim Guide, NickRawcliffe, YouTube, Jun 23, 2023
• Valheim World Modifiers Guide, NickRawcliffe, YouTube, Jun 18, 2023