How to Hide the HUD in Valheim

One of the best things about Viking survival game Valheim is the beautiful low-poly graphical setting. The game has a very unique art style which may seem simple at first, but by adding advanced effects like bloom and light rays, they have turned it into a unique thing of beauty. Naturally, taking and sharing screenshots is a staple of beautiful games. Steam has has a native screenshot hotkey for years now and Valheim is no different. For this, it is recommended that the player hides the HUD (heads-up-display) before taking a shot to really put the viewer in the shot.

Today we will teach you how to remove the HUD in Valheim not only for taking great screenshots, but if you just want an immersive game-play experience. Hiding the HUD works really well with the First-Person Valheim mod which you can read about here.


How to Hide HUD in Valheim

The player can hide the HUD by holding the CTRL key and pressing F3 by default whilst in the game. This is a toggle and such, the HUD can be reinstated by pressing the same combination of buttons. If these buttons do not work it is possible that the hotkeys have been reassigned from the settings menu. In this case, press ESC to enter the menu, go to setting and restore the default settings from the controls menu.

a picture of a troll in valheim. how to disable hud
A screenshot without the HUD in the Black Forest of Valheim

As aforementioned hiding the HUD will also make the gameplay a little more immersive in Valheim for obvious reasons but be warned, you will not be able to see your health and stamina bars or the food indicators when the HUD is hidden.


What is the HUD – Valheim?

HUD stands for Heads-Up-Display and includes everything that isn’t graphics in the game. This means, health bars, the inventory images and text and all other indicators available to the player that aren’t actually apart of the game. See the image below to get a better understanding of what the HUD is in Valheim.

A screenshot of the meadows in Valheim after the hud is gone from the screen
These four elements in each corner make up the HUD in Valheim

As you can see in the above image, some of the HUD elements in Valheim include the health and food bars on the bottom left, the quick bar slots on the top left which include the top row of the inventory, the minimap in the top right and lastly the quick control guide on the bottom right (which can be turned off in the settings menu).

Hiding these elements will obviously make it harder to navigate around the map of Valheim. For some, this may provide an added challenge that they enjoy in the game. The only downside here is, with no visible indicators on your health on your character’s model, you will have absolutely no way of telling how much health or stamina you have left.


Taking Beautiful Screenshots Without the HUD

I will share some of my favorite screenshots below which I have taken without the HUD being on the screen in Valheim. The screenshots are mostly exploration based as I haven’t build too many constructions yet that I am super proud of. Some of the Valheim screenshots below make use of the ‘freefly’ camera. You can read up on how to enable the freefly camera here.

A screenshot of the plains after the player hides the HUD
Exploring the plains

fuling village in Valheim in the mountains no hud
Valheim’s procedural generation sometimes creates some very beautiful moments

in valheim sitting over the mistlands update hidden hud
Awaiting the Mistlands Update

I hope this quick guide on how to hide the HUD has helped you create some even better screenshots! Leave a link down in the comments to your best Valheim screenshots as well. Or better yet, share them with the folks over on the Valheim subreddit.


Related: Valheim – God mode and Other Useful Cheats | How to Tame Necks in Valheim

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