Valheim players are industrializing the slaughter of its most hated monsters

Valheim
(Image credit: IronGate Studios)

Valheim players have spent 185 million hours exploring its surprisingly large world, but already some are moving onto the next stage of Viking colonialism: exploiting the land and its resources in the most disturbing ways possible. Instead of killing monsters for their resources, some players have invented nightmarish death machines that do all the hard work for them. It's as clever as it is cruel.

Over on the Valheim subreddit, a player called Leathermattress has created what they call "The Greydwarf Toaster 5000"—which makes it sound like a very complicated machine when it is, in fact, just a giant flaming pit surrounding a greydwarf nest. These part-tree-part-human pests are found all over Valheim's world and are a constant nuisance, but they also drop resources players need like wood, stone, and, yes, even their own eyeballs.

The Greydwarf toaster 5000. from r/valheim

Greydwarf nests, a giant tangle of sinister-looking branches, spawn a greydwarf every few seconds, so Leathermatress had the brilliant idea of excavating the earth around one and filling it full of bonfires. Now whenever a new greydwarf spawns, it immediately plummets into the flames. Every few hours, Leathermattress loops around the base of the Greydwarf Toaster 5000 to add more wood to the fires and pick up whatever resources the slaughtered greydwarves left behind. It's gruesome, but extremely economical. 

Other players have also caught on that you can enclose monster nests to create an endless supply of resources and carnage. Yesterday, redditor Canamerican726 showcased their Deathsquito BBQ, dedicated fully to burning Valheim's most reviled enemy to death. You can see the video below.

Canamerican726 admits they needed to use some console commands to spawn the Deathsquitos in, but they also made an earlier version without hacks. The problem was it took forever to lure unwitting Deathsquitos to their doom.

Deathsquito BBQ from r/valheim

Earlier this month, redditor univarseman also revealed how he was farming ever-valuable surtling cores by digging a moat around the flame jets that the fiery little devils spawn from.

Of course, not everything Valheim players are building is for the purpose of killing. Players have also created some incredible Viking bases. If you want to step up your game, Twitch streamer CohhCarnage shared all his Valheim building wisdom after playing the game for 140 hours. 

Steven Messner

With over 7 years of experience with in-depth feature reporting, Steven's mission is to chronicle the fascinating ways that games intersect our lives. Whether it's colossal in-game wars in an MMO, or long-haul truckers who turn to games to protect them from the loneliness of the open road, Steven tries to unearth PC gaming's greatest untold stories. His love of PC gaming started extremely early. Without money to spend, he spent an entire day watching the progress bar on a 25mb download of the Heroes of Might and Magic 2 demo that he then played for at least a hundred hours. It was a good demo.