Valheim has a great amount of craftable items, each of them having their own characteristics and appearances. Out of all of them though, there is only one (at the moment) that you can insert your own personal flair to it, and that is your trusty Shield. You may not have the option to customize a weapon, but your shields can be created with a number of interesting designs. There is a catch though, which we will look into right below.
How to customize your Shield
The process is really simple, but easily missable if you don’t pay attention. While in the process of making a shield, exactly before you craft it, if you look closely at your screen you may notice a small icon right below the name of the shield you are about to build. If you scroll over your mouse at that icon, the pop-up text ‘style’ will be highlighted. By clicking it, you will be able to choose the shield’s design before you craft it. If you don’t choose any, which is most likely the case if you haven’t noticed this feature, you will end up with the default, plain shield layout.
I’ll be honest here, I’m one of those that haven’t even seen this icon before, simply because I only crafted a shield in the game twice. Not only that, but the first of those two times was the Serpent Scale Shield, which is an exception to what I just mentioned, as it is not customizable. The Bronze Shield is also another exception, but those are simply the ones I personally found, which means there could be more. In any case though, if you want to throw some extra color to your equipment, this is the way to do it. And please note that after you craft a shield, it is no longer customizable and you are stuck with the default design.
Valheim is not available through Steam Early Access.
