Viking survival exploration game Valheim has come out into early access on Steam and taken the gaming world by storm. The game, at time of writing holds a 96% positive review score on Steam. Players are loving this low-poly, crafting and building Viking revenge story. A lot of the positive reviews remark on how much content there is in the game, even for an early access title.
If you are worried about possible exploration and mechanic spoilers in Valheim please don’t read on. This guide is designed for people who have already discovered the core mechanic of taming and beaten the third boss of the game, Bonemass. You’ve been warned adventurers!
There are a great many things to do in the world of Valheim. From hunting to fishing, building to dungeon crawling the amount of content is great. Iron Gate Studios have created a beautiful fantastic, fun experience all wrapped up in just about 1GB of data. One of the things not many people know you can do in Valheim is tame some of the fauna present in the game. There are a few different types of animals in the game which can be turned from wild to tamed. One of the animals you can tame in the game is a Wolf.
This will be a full guide to taming your own wolf companion. I will go through what you will need to do to find a wolf, and some methods you can use to find and capture wolves of your own to tame.
What are Wolves?
Wolves mimic their real life counterpart in Valheim. They are wild canine creatures that are found in the world of Valheim. They look as they do in real life as large dog-like animals with long hair. When you first approach a wolf in Valheim you may notice that when close enough to the wolf and looking directly at it you will see a small information menu pop up saying that they are Wild and either frightened, which means that they will attack the player or hungry which means that they are not currently alerted to an enemy and will not attack the player.
Wolves will attack other mobs in the game such skeletons and Draugrs found in the swamp. They will attack these creatures whether tamed or wild. Wolves are pretty strong compared to most of the other creatures found up to that point in the game. They only move along the ground but do move quite quickly. They could be compared to Boars as they also move across the ground and use one type of melee attack.
How to Find a Wolf in Valheim
You will not be able to find wolves until you are pretty far into the game, or extremely lucky. Wolves are found only in the Mountain areas of the game. These will be pretty much inaccessible to players starting out in the game as the cold temperatures of the mountain will kill players very quickly. It is not recommended to go to the mountain biome at least until you’ve defeated the third boss of the game, Bonemass.
Wolves will spawn randomly in the mountains. They may spawn alone or in groups of up to to. Contrary to other videogames, in reality wolves were not primarily pack hunters as many people believe. Valheim is one of the first games I’ve seen not play into this trope by spawning single wolves alone. Although this may just be done by accident, or to prevent the player getting ambushed by multiple fast-moving enemies at once.
Regardless, you can find many wolves in the mountain area. If you can’t seem to spot any, try leaving the area and coming back after a certain amount of time to let the animals respawn, or alternatively, try to find another mountain area. In Valheim, the further north you go, the more mountain areas there are so keep that in mind if your squad is capable of long sea travel.
Catching a Wolf
The first thing you are going to want to do when you find a wolf is to catch or trap it somewhere. If you have already tamed a boar in the game you should be pretty familiar with this method. The best thing you can do is to build a cage and try to lure the wolf into it. You can create a walled-in area with a gate out of any material you wish, although the create will be able to damage structures to keep that in mind. It is recommended that you build a small fence area using stone but it is absolutely doable using wooden fences.
Create a gated area using the hammer and put an open gate on the fence. Now, find your wolf and make it aggressive towards you simply by moving near it. Wolves will attack the player as soon as they sense or see them. Since the latest update for Valheim enemies have an exclamation mark over their heads when they are trying to engage the player. Have the wolf chase you into the pen and then close the gate. Congratulations you’ve managed to trap your first wolf!
Quickly move out of sight of the wolf so that it can calm down. If you stay close by the wolf will stay aggressive and attack the your structures. Once you’ve moved far enough away return to the area and sneak up to the wolf. As long as you stay on the other side of a high fence or structure the wolf should not be able to sense you. Now, throw some food down into the pen and wait. Wolves will eat cooked meat and raw meat of any time. Through my experimentation I haven’t found a particular food type that will affect their tame time. You could have also thrown food into the pen before you started the chase. This will be a safer option as it will save you from coming back close to the trapped wolf and possibly making it aggressive again.
If you do accidently have the wolf come aggressive to you while you are taming it do not worry. This will not reset the taming timer and as long as you move out of the area and let the wolf calm down before they destroy your structure you will have lost nothing. Now you simply have to play the waiting game. Wolves will take a couple of in-game days before they are loyal to you. If you want to check the progress on the tame you can sneak up to the wolf using the CTRL key and mouse-over the wolf. you should be able to see the taming percentage if you are close enough to the wolf.
What are Wolves Used For in Valheim?
Once you have a tamed wolf you may be wondering what you can use them for. Unlike Boars, Wolves will actually follow the player around and attack enemies for them. They will defend your camp by attacking creatures that come close. Whether Greydwarf or Skeleton, the wolf will be a strong companion to help you defend your base against enemies and keep you alive in this harsh world of Valheim.
When not following the player, wolves will attack creatures on their own. There is not way to turn this off or on, they will simply hunt. They will go out and hunt deer for the player which is also an extremely efficient way of farming deer hide as you won’t even need to waste an arrow.
You can have a Wolf either follow you, or go about their own business by pressing the ‘E’ key by default. It is recommended to build a pen or area in the house which closed in by walls otherwise wolves can get distracted by enemies and run away or even be killed. You really have to look out for them when they are not following you. Although they may be a very strong ally, they will skill lose a one on one fight against a Greydwarf Brute. If they are defeated, as with wild wolves they will drop wolf pelt and occasionally a fang and trophy.
That’s all there is to say about taming wolves in Valheim. Have you found yourself a wolf companion yet? Do you like the taming method and what kind of features do you want the team to expand upon in taming creatures? Let me know with a comment below.
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