Valheim finally has a finish line. Iron Gate and Coffee Stain shipped 1.0 on 9 September 2026, and it came with the Deep North, the last major biome, which closes out the progression that started back in early access in 2021. We've hosted Valheim since day one, through every one of those updates, and I'll say up front: this one was a bigger deal for server owners than a normal biome drop, because two separate things arrived on the same day. The final biome, and consoles.
I first wrote this post three weeks before launch, when all anyone had was a date and a trailer. It's been updated now that 1.0 is out and we've spent launch week reading real server logs, so what's below is what actually shipped rather than what was promised. The short version of the decisions hasn't changed: which platforms you're inviting, whether you're running mods, and whether the world you're on now is really the world you want to finish the game in. If you're standing a world up fresh rather than carrying one over, the options are on our Valheim hosting page.
What the Deep North actually added
Before launch Iron Gate were deliberately sparing with specifics, and a lot of confident detail did the rounds that nobody could check. The 1.0 patch notes settle it. The headline list is a new biome, 40+ new weapons, 4 new armour sets, 10+ new creatures, 80+ new buildable pieces, 20+ new foods, new events and achievements. Among the bits you'll actually notice in the first evening:
- Snow that falls thick enough you have to clear it before you can build, which is what the Snow Shovel is for.
- A grappling hook, a Frost Foundry and a Frigid Kiln.
- Moose you can tame and ride, seals, and the Elaking.
- The Jotun, who have "begun their invasion of Valheim", and a new boss.
- A whole set of 67-degree roof, wall and beam pieces, for anyone whose longhouse roofline never looked steep enough.
- Upgradeable pockets from Haldor, and "alternate versions of earlier biomes" out at the outer edges of the map.
For a server owner, the takeaway from a whole new biome is the same regardless of what's in it: more world, more assets loaded, more to keep an eye on with memory. More on that below.
The console launch is the real story for server owners
This is the part that changed things. Valheim 1.0 brought the game to PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch 2 alongside the existing PC, Mac, Linux, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S versions, with crossplay across every platform. A hosted, always-on server is genuinely the cleanest way to get a PC player, an Xbox player, a PS5 player and someone on a Switch 2 into the same world and keep it running when everyone logs off.
There's a decision baked into crossplay, and it's worth making on purpose rather than tripping over. It's also worth stating more precisely than this post did originally, because the version of it that circulates online is wrong.
Crossplay does not stop BepInEx loading. Turning it on moves the server onto a different matchmaking backend and leaves the mod loader alone. Server-side mods keep working on a crossplay server. What you'll read almost everywhere, including in an earlier version of this post, is that the crossplay backend hooks the same DLLs as the mod loader and kills modding outright. That explanation isn't true. It never was.
The real constraint is simpler, and it comes from the console side. Console players can't install mods at all. So any mod that needs to be on the client shuts out your PS5, Switch 2 and Xbox players, whatever the server is doing. On top of that, mods written assuming every player is on Steam, typically anything reading a SteamID64 for admin lists or leaning on Steam networking, can throw errors when a console player joins.
Which lands you in roughly the same practical place, but for reasons that hold up:
- If you want your console friends in the world, run vanilla or stick to server-side-only mods.
- If your group is all on PC and you live for the mod scene, keep crossplay off and mod away.
Decide which world you're running before you invite people, because switching later means either kicking your console players or stripping your mods. Our mod installation guide covers the modded path.
Turning it on depends on which of our panels your server is on. On our newer panel it's a Crossplay tick in the General group on the Manage tab, then save and restart. On control.low.ms it isn't a toggle: it's set by which predefined line your server starts with in Commandline Manager, and only the Additional Configuration line carries the tokens for world presets and extra arguments, so switching between them can drop tuned settings. Open a ticket there if you need crossplay and custom arguments together.
Your console players won't use an IP address
This catches almost everyone the first time. On a crossplay server your console and Game Pass players don't connect by IP and port at all. The server registers itself with the crossplay backend when it starts and gets back a six-digit join code. That code is what you hand out. Six digits, nothing else. Crossplay has to be enabled on the player's side as well as the server's, and on Xbox the toggle can be hidden by parental control settings. There's a full walkthrough of join codes, console connection steps and the mixed-platform admin lists in Valheim Crossplay and Join Codes on Dedicated Servers.
On our newer panel the current code is shown on your server's Overview tab. Otherwise the simplest way to read it is from inside the game: join your own server, open the pause menu, and the join code is there to click and copy. It's also written to the server log, which is the route when nobody can get in yet, and there it doesn't turn up instantly. The line you want reads Session "Your Server Name" registered with join code 604510. If you go looking a second or two early you'll find the session announced with the code still blank, which reads like something has failed when it just hasn't come back yet. Give it a moment and read the log again. The code changes every time the server starts.
Your existing world didn't magically fill with Deep North
This is the question that comes up most, every biome update. If you've been playing on the same world for a year, you may have logged in on 9 September expecting the Deep North on your doorstep. That's not how Valheim works.
Iron Gate's 1.0 FAQ puts it plainly: your world "will receive new content even if it was created before the update, although biome generation will only work properly on areas that have not yet been explored." Valheim builds the world zone by zone, the first time anyone loads each zone. Once a zone is generated it's written to your world save with its terrain and biome baked in, and the game never goes back and re-evaluates it. Anywhere you've already explored stays exactly as it is, which is good news for your base. It's not going anywhere.
The way you actually experience Deep North on an existing world is to head north into water and land you haven't explored yet. Those fresh zones generate with the full 1.0 content. Sail, and you'll find it. If your base already sits right at the old northern edge, the unexplored zones just past it will have it.
"Explored" is broader than it sounds: it means any zone generated for anyone on that world, including coastline somebody sailed past at night. The in-game map isn't a reliable guide either, because generation reaches a few hundred metres further out than the minimap ever reveals.
If you've already explored the whole northern stretch and you want Deep North content forced into those already-generated zones, that's possible but it's a different job. It takes a world-editing tool, the community's Upgrade World, whose upgrade deepnorth operation clears the generated Deep North zones and nearby water so they come back under the new rules. Terrain it leaves to the base game rather than rewriting itself, so this isn't the river-moving operation some of that tool's other options are. It does empty the zones it touches, though. Base protection is the only thing standing between that regeneration and anything you've built up there. It's a BepInEx tool, so check its Thunderstore page has a release from after 9 September, take a backup, and open a ticket and we'll walk through it or run the pass for you. Honestly, for most groups the easy answer is simpler. Sail into fresh territory, or start a clean 1.0 world. There's a fuller walkthrough in Deep North on an existing Valheim world.
Should you start fresh?
There's no forced wipe. Your world carried over and 1.0 happily loads it. But "it loads" and "it's the best way to see the final biome" aren't the same thing, and Iron Gate still "always recommend that you start the game over from scratch". A brand-new 1.0 world generates every zone under the new rules, so the whole map, not just the north, reflects the finished game. If your current world is long in the tooth or your group's been drifting anyway, a fresh start is a clean way to experience the ending as intended, and everyone progresses together.
If you've got a base and a world you're attached to, keep it. Just take a manual backup first, so you've got a safe point before you change anything. And if you want to bring a local single-player world up to the server to continue it, how to move a Valheim world to a dedicated server covers what carries over and the safe order to do it in, with the exact file mechanics in our world upload guide.
If you do want a fresh 1.0 world on our newer panel, open a ticket and we'll set it up with you. The panel's own New World tool was written for the old save format, and until it's updated for 1.0 world folders I'd rather do it with you than have you find out it didn't clear the old world.
What changed underneath, for server owners
A few things arrived with 1.0 that you won't see from inside the game:
- Worlds are folders now. The chunked save system from the May public test build shipped in 1.0. A world is no longer a
.dband.fwlpair but a folder of.chunkfiles, and only the chunks that changed get written on each save. Older worlds convert themselves the first time a 1.0 server loads them, keeping the original files and a dated backup copy first. Any instructions you've saved about copying two files by hand stopped being right on launch day. - Restarting doesn't update. Launch day was build 1.0.7, and the 1.0.12 hotfix two days later changed the network version, so a server still on 1.0.7 turns away players on the current client. On our newer panel press Update (or add an Update scheduled task). On control.low.ms it's stop, Steam Update, start. Our update guide has the order of operations.
- Ban lists and whitelists only recognised the new 1.0 player ID format on the launch build. 1.0.12 fixed that, which is one more reason to update.
- Mods broke, as expected. A version bump this size, with a Unity engine upgrade on top, meant BepInEx and most Thunderstore mods needed new builds. Add mods back as authors ship 1.0 releases. Our top Valheim mods list is a good place to watch for what's caught up.
- Glance at your RAM if you run big builds or a heavy modlist. Vanilla Valheim is light. But the final biome plus a sprawling base plus mods adds up, and you can bump memory from the panel any time.
Everything else, from item stands to achievements, is in our 1.0 patch notes breakdown for server owners, and there's a practical post-launch checklist if you just want the list to work through.
That's the whole server-owner picture. Deep North is the content. But the console launch and the crossplay decision are the parts that actually shape how you set your server up, and the existing-world question is the one worth understanding before your players start asking why the north looks the same. If you want to get a world going, the getting started guide will have you up in a few minutes.