You'll get by in the early going of Valheim with leather armor made from Deer Hide, but if you want to explore Viking purgatory in a meaningful way, you need to enter the Bronze Age. Bronze Armor offers a significant upgrade in protection, and you'll need Bronze tools to access a lot of new materials. Making Bronze isn't easy, though--which is why we've got a complete guide to help you find the materials you need, make the right crafting stations, and start blacksmithing.

What To Do First

To start harvesting the things you need to make Bronze, you'll need to venture into the Black Forest biome. This is a step up in difficulty from the early game location of the Meadows, where you'll mostly deal with boars and Greylings. The forest houses much tougher enemies, including a variety of Greydwarf types, Skeletons, and Trolls. You might run into them in the Meadows, but going into the Black Forest is a pretty big risk early on.

To handle it, you're going to at least need Leather Armor--but if you can get Troll Hide Armor, you should. But to make the weapons needed to succeed in the Black Forest, you must first deal with your toughest early-game challenge so far: Eikthyr, the Meadows biome boss.