When you first jump into Valheim, the game doesn’t really tell you what to do or where to go. The experience is your adventure alone to explore and wandering around aimlessly can get you a lot of resources and monster encounters. But, most importantly, you may tumble your way inside of the Black Forest.
When you first find the Black Forest, ominous music begins to play in your ears as the words “Black Forest” go across your screen. It appropriately lets you know that this area is dangerous and that if you aren’t confident in your abilities and skill level, you should turn back now. But for the intrepid wanderers who favor danger, here’s how to prepare for and find the mythic wood.
How To Find The Black Forest
You may not find the forest in your first few hours if you’re just focusing on finding resources, building a safe base, and preparing for the first boss fight. There’s no way to tell which direction it may be in; you’ll just have to walk for a long while until you find some pine trees.
Pine trees are the first thing you can spot when coming up on the Black Forest. The Black Forest only contains these ever-green trees and not the normal birch and beech you’re used to. Though they are technically a different type of free, they will drop the same type of normal wood. Look up at the horizon constantly to check for any taller, Christmas-looking trees in the distance.
What’s Inside The Black Forest
When you first cross the threshold between the Meadow and the Black Forest, Hugin the bird will spawn in and inform you that you must turn back until you’re better prepared. This is for good reason as the Black Forest contains stronger and more frequently spawning foes.
Instead of abandoned wooden huts with honey and chests, you can find cobblestone structures with chests inside them instead. There will also be a lot of ore that you can’t mine just yet such as tin and copper. Tin spawns near the edge of the water whereas copper will look like one giant rocky ground. You can also find dungeon tombs in the forest that have loot and items you haven’t encountered yet.
In your normal and safe environment, you’ve gathered raspberries and taken down Greylings. In the Black Forest, you will only find blueberries and Greydwarves. Greydwarves are higher-level enemies that you can’t block with your measly beginner weapons. They will often have stars under their name which means that they are even stronger. You can definitely take on a Greydwarf at the beginning as they still attack slow and are silly creatures. The main problem with the Black Forest is that you could get overwhelmed.
There will be spawn locations of Greydwarves where you will have to take them all on to destroy it. On top of this threat, there are trolls – large, scary trolls that will spot you from a distance if you’re not quiet. Rest assured that if they do see you, you can outrun them since they will just walk really menacingly toward your location.
When You Will Be Prepared To Enter The Black Forest
The game and Hugin himself suggest you beat the first boss before venturing forth into the Black Forest. Once you first spawn into your world and interact with the stones at the spawn location, the waypoint for the first boss, Eikthyr, will show up on your map. To summon him, you need two deer trophies. And you better have a full hide of deer on your back, too.
Deer trophies are randomly dropped when you kill deer. Some people have taken on Eikthyr with nearly nothing but a wooden club, but if you want to prepare better, it’s best to craft a full leather tunic armor set and any weapon that best suits you. Or every weapon.
