With today’s Valheim patch, full crossplay support has been added to the popular Viking survival crafting title. This news might confuse some players, given that the game is currently only playable through Steam. However, as promised earlier this year, Valheim is coming to Microsoft Game Pass and the Microsoft store. This month’s Xbox Showcase revealed that Game Pass users will be able to start chopping down Nordic trees September 29th.
It’s historically been difficult or downright impossible to get crossplay to work between Game Pass and Steam, even on titles that ostensibly support it. Presumably with that in mind, Valheim devs Iron Gate Studio have enlisted software consultants Piktiv to help them with getting Valheim’s crossplay working. With any luck, it won’t be a struggle to play with your friends who are trying the game out on Game Pass — players on different platforms should be able to use a join code to enter their friend’s game.
Dedicated server hosts should also note that they’ll need to enable crossplay if they want their non-Steam friends to be able to join (see full notes below); once that’s done, the new join codes and the regular old IP address method will both be available. Don’t forget to check that you and your friend both have the same version of the game! You can see your version number in the bottom right corner of the main menu.
Valheim Patch Notes Version 0.211.7
- Crossplay support added
- ‘Manage saves’ GUI added so that it’s easier for players to restore/remove saves & backups
- Minor network optimization for in-game hosting (Less demanding for the host when other players are in the game at the same time)
- ‘Join Game’ tab has been updated. Players can now add favourite servers, and see if a server is running, and if they support crossplay or not.**
- Players can now use the parameter ‘-crossplay’ while running Dedicated servers to support crossplay. When using this parameter, the backend will be running Playfab instead of Steamworks. (A ‘Join code’ will appear when you join a Dedicated server supporting crossplay. Players can use this code to join the server. This Join code is regenerated whenever the server is restarted.)
- A new branch, “default_old”, has been added, where you can play on the previous Steam version of the game in case your server hasn’t been updated yet (Steam might need a restart for the branch to show up)
**A question mark indicates that a server status is uncertain, while a red X indicates that the server is down. If there is a “shuffle” icon next to the server status, that means the server supports crossplay.
