In a game where killing pretty much happens left, right, and beyond, it’s now time to show the tamer side of Valheim, building structures. With a set amount of building materials, styles and orientations, it’s up to you (and your creative mind) to turn the number of materials to farm and carry to your choice of builds into whatever you wish to bring forth in the game. It’s also worth pointing out that to make a great base, a combination of these structures will create a great base for you and your Viking mates to rest on and add character to the community you plan to build upon.
Unlike some sandbox, creative games, Valheim adheres to certain physics, similar to real-life buildings, namely the foundation of the build, meaning that magical floating castle isn’t gonna happen on a dinky, 2-meter pole on the ground holding everything together. For that reason alone, making impressive structures without careful planning is a feat on its own, and here are some of the best the Viking community has to offer.
To address the elephant in the room, design is purely subjective and a Top 10 about anything subjective, isn’t going to be the same for everyone, so for this list, I’ll be showcasing popular examples, in no particular order, of what you can achieve with a bit of thinking, grinding, friend-helping, and, for the most part, a lot of god-mode usages.
As with all Valheim lists, this was written at the time of the games’ latest version (Hearth and Home Update, version 0.203.10). For this list, the builds range from singular building types to fully finished villages. I’ve also avoided compilation videos as I’d like to share the spotlight on the bases one by one.
Now, on to the construction of this list.
10. Basic Base (FireSpark81)
What’s Great About This Build:
The great standouts for this build are the following:
- Compact design
- Mostly regular wood build
- Beginner, material, and time-friendly
- Can be useable for the entirety of the game
While anyone can easily build a rectangular house to make into a temporary or permanent shelter, as a complete beginner house, this rounded house looks to be a much better compromise in its ease of building and usability up until you decide to go bigger. Even with the concept of going bigger, this house fits your essentials for what it is, and is a good minimalist type build for those who do more fighting outside than staying at home.
9. Advanced Base (BROOVERs)
What’s Great About This Build:
The great standouts for this build are the following:
- Grander but still relatively simple design
- A mix of stone and wood adds a lot of detail to the house
- Multi-floor construction can create space for specific rooms
From the use of stone in the pillars and outside area to the angled beams that accent the houses’ look, you’re looking at a loaded base for your Viking. The stonecutter needed to make these floors and pillars puts you more towards building this in the mid game should you not enable console commands (pseudo-cheats basically), but a pretty amazing build to contemplate on for your (presumably) final house. Piece of advice though, keep it away from the Black Forest as Trolls can do a number on your hard work.
8. Castle Base (ESO)
What’s Great About This Build:
The great standouts for this build are the following:
- Part of the base already exists in areas of the game
- A choice between a simple build and a bigger build for your needs
- Great view for those lucky to see a stone circle near a cliff edge
Depending on your approach to the build, the first thing you’ve got to find are these circular ruins in the Mountains for you to get started. Trees and the mountain itself will be available for your need of wood and stone respectively, so you may not need to venture far to get started. A great view awaits you when you finish it, but on the subject of finishing, you better hope the creatures around don’t finish you off first as you build this base. Without the use of debug mode, strong enemies will roam and will kill you if you have little to no food and/or armor when building, so keep that in mind when you want to do something like this without any safety. Just have everything prepped and you should be king in the castle in no time.
7. Modern House Base (TheProGinge)
What’s Great About This Build:
The great standouts for this build are the following:
- A nice sleek build that most modern houses give the feel of
- Plentiful use of stone makes this build more durable
- Roomy and spacious for the main house portion
Design-wise, it’s amazing, and the pool is a nice touch. As said earlier, this is just one example, so you can use this guide as a template to create your own dream house.
Now before you do this build, it’s worth pointing out that the biggest drawback is that it doesn’t have the roof building material, and in this game, if you don’t have a roof, you’re subject to weather damage over time. Another big setback is the need for a lot of Iron, and if you’ve been using weapons for Iron, you’ll know how grind-intensive that is to get. Also, it’s worth pointing out that while doable in normal mode, the video shows it being done in debug mode and sped up to save time, but in the actual game, you could be spending multiple hours just to get everything done, assuming rain and mobs hasn’t damaged the structures first. It’s easy to repair those pieces, yes, but you’ll need a lot of stamina to do that, so know what you’re getting yourself into before creating the house of envy in the Viking neighborhood.
6. Mead Hall (The Pilgrimz Project)
What’s Great About This Build:
The great standouts for this build are the following:
- A really big place, fit to house many people at once
- The built area can also be repurposed as a large gathering hall
- Large space allows you to get decorations for max comfort stats
A large-scale project like this takes a large amount of time to set up, plan, and build. This is for those who want to take their time building while the rest of the players in the server go about their expeditions or goals, with that being said, you’ll need all the metric tons of wood you can get as not only is this build very wood heavy, but structurally heavy too, which in turn needs a lot of support beams to get right. With this big of a build also, once done, you can also max out the comfort to give a faster regen buff to anyone stopping by for a meal. For this build, I’d say this is a very good representation of what a mead hall should be: spacious, grand, and very useful for everyone who’d need its use as a food hall for the masses.
5. Portal Hub (GReimer Gaming)
What’s Great About This Build:
The great standouts for this build are the following:
- A wooden only construction, allowing you to build this early on
- Can be done without debug mode (or cheats)
- Can remove the clutter of portals, thus reducing FPS drops from their effects
There are tons of portal hub ideas out there but have chosen this one as it’s a beginner-friendly design with access to the materials being easy early in the game. You can classify this as a medium-scale project as you’d predominantly need regular and core wood for the walls and roof and support beams respectively. Having said that, it’s also a design that’s easy to roof, as the only portion needed to be roofed and protected is the portal area itself, leaving that center area to be anything you’d want it to be.
The video itself shows the hub’s design, which is far from bad looking and looks pretty sleek and simple given the large area needed to build it. It leaves a lot of options on how you can partition or categorize your portals, so you can sector some for the Mountains, a remote settlement, etc. So again, if you want to build a transport terminal for all the places your Viking will go.
4. Arena (Blairible)
What’s Great About This Build:
The great standouts for this build are the following:
- A great build for those looking to add depth to their base
- Can double purpose for other functions like portals
- Can be a great build for those needing a place to test weapons uninterrupted
Going back to the build, it’s an amazing-looking structure, to say the least, and like the houses earlier, it’s a mix of wood and stone that brings this very much in line with the setting of the game, and for sure a great addition. Keep in mind that, creating this barbaric stadium is as hard as the time spent making and planning it. Not only does this need a lot of resources but careful planning on the support structure to hold things into place. To add to that, enemies can slow you down as they can spawn near you, especially at night, so it’s best to have others with you to help build to save time, as with many large-scale projects on this list. As for the aesthetics, no doubt it’s an amazing thing to have around your base as its fitting for the game setting and, overall a nice pastime for leveling your skills with others, assuming they too want to level their skills.
3. Sea Base (Elreana Fayn)
What’s Great About This Build:
The great standouts for this build are the following:
- An elaborate build for those wanting a simple, secluded area
- A good build for those wanting isolation
- Island build can also be larger depending on your needs
From a community build, to one of absolute isolation. If you think that being far from civilization is not enough, then consider owning an island. With this build, you’d have free control of what you want to put on your island, assuming you haven’t shared this build with another Viking friend beforehand. While the most flexible in terms of what to do, you’d be faced with several challenges such as the materials needed, building challenges, and a common issue for these builds, mob safety.
For the building materials, yes, as seen in the video, raising the ground to be able to clear the waves is a huge task and if you want to recreate the one seen in the video, you’ll need stone, lots of it. Building the entire base out of stone also requires time, lots of it. Now, for the drawback of having this type of base, your island becomes a center point for a raid or mob event and need some help? You’ll have none of that unless you have a portal connected to the main area other Vikings are at. To speak from experience, a friend built his house on an island, and to put it simply, it was a nightmare to handle strong mobs. From Trolls to the whole Swamp to battle, once you become the focal point of the wave, you can pretty much say your hard work in building a nation is in ruins. Either way, a great build, with great responsibilities.
2. Mountain Base (SmittySurvival)
What’s Great About This Build:
The great standouts for this build are the following:
- Great utilization of the area to mesh with the background
- Separated buildings for different uses adds dynamics
- Highly customizable base design considering the area
A great example of a completed base design and to put in one of the best-looking areas in the game, the mountains. A key difference between this and the Castle build is that you get to utilize more of the space given to you while as in the other build, you’ll be hunting for that perfect spot that may not exist naturally, and will rely on your judgment. Again, being a build only limited by how you design it, this video shows the things you can do such as elevated walkways, multiple houses, dedicated smithing areas and other aesthetic choices. For the elevated walkways, I’d also recommend putting a roof on these as weather damage is a thing, as with most of the builds here, but other than that, your snowy wonderland awaits.
1. Treehouse Base (Vinrenu)
What’s Great About This Build:
The great standouts for this build are the following:
- Uses the currently barren Mistlands area
- Extremely loaded and well thought out sections
- Sturdy base foundation on the trees, removing some of the worries of it collapsing
The last example of these amazing Valheim builds is the treehouse, and it’s so complex that you’d only do something like this if you want to do this sort of build specifically. Multiple challenges can deny you easy passage to this build, with the first one being the tree you’ll use. Not any tree will do as they are flimsy and often don’t have large support areas for large platforms, and the primary reason why the Mistlands is perfect for this sort of build since the trees are so large that you, or any possible mob, can’t cut it down, collapsing everything to the ground. The Swamps also offer similar trees, but since that can house Wraiths which hurt quite a bit and can ruin your structures, the currently empty Mistlands is pretty much the safest way to go. The video also explains that the community were the ones that contribute to this growing civilization build, and proves that it can be entirely doable without debug modes
As for the aesthetics of the build, it’s stunning with the treehouse seemingly going on and on with design choices, like the mini-store, the choice of displayed materials, and the intricate details of the walls and outside accents. Given that this project takes so much time (and even your FPS at times), this is truly a tall job for someone dedicated enough to build their bases sky high.
Conclusion:
Let’s be real, all of these are winners in their own right, and as I stated earlier, design is subjective, with countless more designs being shown online that can steal the spotlight at any given time. Like most things in Valheim’s, choices are entirely there for you to decide on your terms, and whether you like the simple round base at the start, or the ambitious treehouse in a land far from spawn, just know that anything is doable when you use your imagination (and a lot of support beams and pillars). Build well and kill enemies just as well!
