Despite Valheim still being in Early Access, developer Iron Gate Studio frequently updates the game as the title draws closer to its full release. Recently, Valheim released its Midsummer Update for 2023. Here's everything the update packed in its patch notes across new items, Summer Solstice celebrations, and more.

Valheim Midsummer Update Patch Notes

The Valheim Midsummer update is smaller than the major patches of the game. Nonetheless, the content and improvements brought by this update coincide with the celebration of the summer solstice.

New Items

Valheim sees the return of last year’s Midsummer items: the Maypole and Midsummer Crown. The Maypole is a seasonal structure found in some abandoned villages in the Meadows biome. It increases a nearby player’s Comfort by 1 and is craftable using the following materials:

• 10x Wood
• 4x Dandelion
• 4x Thistle

Warning: Maypoles won’t respawn once destroyed. But you can spawn these items using console commands. As for the Midsummer Crown, it gives the wearer 1 armor. Unfortunately, it has no other effect than this one benefit. You can craft this item at the Workbench using 10x Dandelion. New banner colors also come with this update. These new colors are orange, purple, white, and yellow, marking the celebration of this time of the year.

Save File Improvements

The Valheim Midsummer patch also optimizes how the game manages its save files. For instance, save file sizes have been reduced, allowing load times to be faster than before. Also, the developers fixed various save file issues, including one wherein the game deletes a save file when it encounters a glitch in the GUI. Additionally, the game automatically creates a backup save file when you load into a new world. Also, players with save files from old patches won’t be able to load into newer versions of the game to prevent stability issues.

Timeline

Players can experience the Valheim’s Midsummer update starting June 12. However, the developers didn’t announce a definitive end to this update. So, players may still see and craft Maypoles and Midsummer Crowns after the summer solstice. In comparison, the 2021 Midsummer event started on June 23. Then, the next event began on June 22, 2022. But it wasn’t until August 30 of the next year that the developers removed the players’ ability to craft Midsummer items.

Other Changes

Below are the detailed patch notes of update 0.216.9.

• Midsummer items enabled (Maypole & Midsummer crown)
• Many performance, memory, and networking improvements for both new/unexplored and old/explored worlds
• World save file size greatly reduced
• Fixed endless loading of save manager when switching tabs too fast
• World save files that are corrupt, have load errors, or have missing meta files can now be restored from the most recent backup directly from within the Select World menu by pressing the "Start" button
• Save file stability & issues fixed
• Decreased load times in the Manage Saves menu
• Fixed a bug that would cause the GUI’s update to fail when deleting the bottommost backup in the Manage Saves menu.
• Made an automatic backup when starting a world in a new version, and a permanent backup is created when loading into a new world version
• Fixed a world load issue between versions. (You can no longer load into a world from a game version that is newer than your current game version)
• Fixed hitbox issue for close combat and spear-throwing issue
• Added "UI scaling" to settings on Xbox
• Minimap pin input fixed on Steam Deck & Big Picture mode
• Minimap text input fix for certain Asian languages