Valheim’s 5th Year anniversary patch adds early game axes – here’s how to get them

Image via Iron Gate

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Last Updated On: Feb 2, 2026 8:47 pm CET

It has been nearly five years since Iron Gate and Coffee Stain dropped Valheim, the indie upstart survival game that gave people a completely new take on the genre. From building actual chimneys to the way the game’s biome and boss system works, it offered something new. And to celebrate its five years of launch, Valheim is getting a brand new patch that adds even more goodies to the game to celebrate.

The Valheim 5-year patch notes are adding a few good new features for players to get their hands on. The contents range from new weapons, emotes, and hairstyles to a few new recipes and building pieces. Check ’em out:

New Emote: Vibe New Emote: LoveYou New Buildpiece: Flower Garland New Buildpiece: Fey Lights New Consumable: Frosted Sweetbread New Weapon: Early Axes New Hat: Celebratory Cap 2 New Materials: Mysterious Axe Head, Curious Axe Head 3 New Hairstyles (Champion, Chronicler, Sunbringer) Added radial menu for emotes

The main feature players are interested in is the early-game axes in Valheim. These axes are known as AxeHead 1 and AxeHead 2 if you console command them into a game. If you want to find them, they tend to spawn in the houses in the Meadows biome. They give you options to use axe builds if you like them, but it seems that crafting them from materials seems like the better use for the builds.

They are indeed early, though, so it makes sense why the Dark Forest quality ores will be better.

If you check out the full spoiler-filled patch notes, you may encounter a few other balance changes and system tweaks. One of them, Valheim, is now optimized for Steam Deck performance mode and runs at 60 FPS. That’s a big deal, really. There are also some performance improvements on PC and Xbox, making the game better overall.

Though the game is only on v0.222, and it’s been five years. It could be a very long while before Valheim is truly ready for its 1.0 launch. There’s a big update on the way for the Frozen North; they are teasing so far. Other than that, Velheim loves to drop smaller updates, as they did with the bears.

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