Valheim Patch 0.217.28: Autumn Update Brings Halloween Items, Unity 2022 Engine, and Major Optimizations

Valheim's Autumn Update, version 0.217.28, has finally rolled out after a small delay. The headline is a pair of seasonal craftables returning for Halloween, but the more interesting story under the hood is a Unity 2022 engine upgrade and a long list of performance fixes that anyone running a dedicated server will want to know about.

Two Seasonal Items Are Back on the Workbench

The Autumn patch reintroduces two craftable items at the Workbench for as long as the spooky season runs.

Jack-o-Turnip

A pumpkin-style light source carved from a humble root vegetable. It burns for an impressive 33 hours and 20 minutes of in-game time, which makes it a strong pick for lighting up bases, paths, or long-running raid camps.

• Station: Workbench
• Materials: 4x Turnip, 2x Resin

Pointy Hat

A witch-style hat that completes any spooky transmog. The catch is that it only offers 1 defense, so it is purely cosmetic in practical terms.

• Station: Workbench
• Materials: 3x Deer Hide, 5x Coal, 1x Bronze

Heads up: equipping the Pointy Hat breaks your armor set bonus. If you are running a full Fenris kit and rely on that bonus, save the hat for screenshots and downtime.

A New Render Scale Setting

One of the more useful additions in 0.217.28 is the new Render scale graphics option. The world camera can now render at a resolution lower than your UI and viewport, which is a familiar trick from larger engines. On older or budget machines, this can recover a noticeable amount of frames without making menu text look like soup.

Engine Jump to Unity 2022

This is the kind of change that sounds boring in patch notes and matters a lot in practice. Iron Gate upgraded the engine to Unity 2022, alongside fresh versions of Steamworks.NET and the PlayFab Party libraries. New engine, new optimizations, and a better foundation for the work that follows the Ashlands content roadmap.

Performance and Bug Fixes Worth Highlighting

The list is dense, so here are the items most players and server admins will actually feel:

• Object instantiation logic was optimized, trimming baseline CPU time by up to 5%.
• Structural integrity calculations were rewritten, which dramatically lowers CPU usage in areas with very large builds. Megabase owners, this is for you.
• Enemy AI and underwater logic received optimization passes.
• Dedicated server engine code received its own round of optimizations.
• Traps no longer multi-trigger in multiplayer based on the number of nearby players.
• Boss spawns were tweaked so bosses no longer get stuck during the spawn animation.
• Automatic input switching ignores noisy gamepads with stick drift, so a forgotten controller cannot fight your keyboard for control anymore.
• Objects can once again hold more than 255 KVPs of arbitrary data with the same value type, which is important for several popular mods.
• A clicking sound bug when selecting building pieces with a controller was squashed.
• Localization was refreshed across the board.

Full Patch Notes for Valheim 0.217.28 (November 7, 2023)

• Jack-o-Turnip enabled. Spooky season is officially open.
• New seasonal item: Pointy Hat.
• Added a new Render scale graphics setting that renders the main camera at a lower resolution than the viewport and UI.
• Improved automatic input switching so connected gamepads with stick drift no longer take over when playing with keyboard and mouse.
• Optimized the code that decides which world objects to instantiate, lowering baseline CPU time by up to 5%.
• Optimized structural integrity calculations, massively reducing CPU time in areas with large builds.
• Optimized enemy AI.
• Optimized underwater logic.
• Re-enabled objects to hold more than 255 KVPs of arbitrary data of the same value type, important for some mods.
• Fixed a bug that could cause traps to trigger multiple times in multiplayer based on how many players were near them.
• Engine upgraded to Unity 2022.
• Upgraded Steamworks.NET and PlayFab Party libraries to newer versions.
• Engine-side optimizations for dedicated servers.
• Tweaked boss spawning so bosses do not occasionally get stuck when appearing.
• Fixed a bug that caused clicking sounds when selecting building pieces via controller.
• Localization updated.

Should You Update Your Server Right Away?

If you run a dedicated Valheim server, this is a patch worth scheduling. The CPU savings on structural integrity alone are a meaningful upgrade for any community that has built sprawling longhouses, sky bases, or megastructures. Pair the update with a quick mod compatibility check, and you are set for the rest of the season.