Valheim Developer Expresses Disapproval For Paid Mods

Mods, shorthand for modifications, are one of the strongest boasting points of PC gaming. On various occasions, these introduce graphical and performance improvements to games that are in dire need of it. At other times, they serve a purely recreational purpose. Taking this into account, Valheim developer Iron Gate Studio has clarified that it condones paid mods for they are “against the creative and open spirit of modding itself.”

In the news section of the game’s official Steam page, Iron Gate Studio’s latest post “Regarding Mods” clarifies a couple of points concerning the Swedish developer’s stance on mods. 

 We definitely understand that you spend a lot of your time on creating a mod, and that you might want financial compensation for that, but Iron Gate does not condone locking modded content behind a paywall.

We feel that charging money for a mod is against the creative and open spirit of modding itself, and therefore we urge all mod authors to make their mods freely available to all who want to play them. This should include the whole mod, and not just have part of the mod available for free while another part of it costs money. If you want to show your appreciation for a mod author you can of course still support them with a voluntary donation, but we do not want payment to be a requirement to access a mod.”

The developer has also expressed their gratitude over the fact that its front-running IP has received much love from the PC modding community. Valheim, currently in Early Access, does not have official mod support, but that hasn’t stopped the enthusiasts among us from taking it upon themselves and dishing out one mod after the other for the survival-based RPG. 

First of all, while we don’t have any official mod support, we are definitely happy to see that people are engaging with our game and creating their own mods for it. It’s definitely flattering that you want to be creative and add your own ideas!”

The latter part of the blog post reads that the devs want mod creators to label their creations “unofficial” for it confuses new players when they enter a specific server and a mod starts downloading on their end. This can often mess things up for individuals simply experimenting with the title and not intentionally wanting to try out a third-party add-on. 

Additionally, we would also greatly appreciate it if mods made it clear that they are unofficial mods, both in game and on any website where the mod is available. Sometimes joining a modded dedicated server will automatically trigger a download of a mod, and we simply want to avoid confusion for players so that they can know whether or not they are playing a modded game. Valheim already has a feature for this, where you can simply have your mod trigger a popup in game, which will inform the player that their game is running with a mod.”

You can head over to Nexus Mods and test your hand at the diversity of mods available for Valheim. Apparently, the title is chock-full of these modifications now, and Valheim isn’t even out yet on a full scale. It’s available to play on PC via Steam and Xbox Series X|S.