Valheim is expanding beyond video games once again, this time with an official comic book series featuring an impressive lineup of talent from Marvel, DC, television, and animation.

Developer Iron Gate Studio has teamed up with GUNGNIR Books and MOOD Publishing to bring its Viking survival game to comics, with the first release planned for the first quarter of 2027. The multi-issue series will feature original stories set in the world of Valheim, rather than simply retelling the events of the game.

The writing team certainly has a pretty impressive portfolio that bodes well for the series. It includes Steve Orlando (Wonder Woman, Avengers), Deric A. Hughes and Ben Raab (Quantum Leap), J. Holtham (The Handmaid's Tale, Supergirl), Brea Grant (12 Hour Shift), Tim Sheridan (Masters of the Universe), and Olan Rogers (Final Space). They're joined by TD Orel, Chris Klian, Andrew Sanders, and GUNGNIR Books founder Matthew Medney.

On the art side, Scott Oakley, Vanessa Del Rey, Lucas Pereira, and Mario Del Pennino are among the confirmed artists, with Mohamad Samah overseeing production design. More talent is expected to be announced.

According to the announcement, the series will explore the mythology of Valheim's mysterious tenth Norse realm, introducing new adventures and perspectives on its gods, monsters, and dangerous environments. Expect plenty of exploration, survival, and presumably some very unfortunate encounters with the local wildlife.

“Valheim is one of those rare worlds that feels like it existed long before we ever discovered it. There are gods, monsters, entire civilizations, and a mythology so rich that the stories we can tell feel almost endless," said Matthew Medney from GUNGNIR Books. "For us, the opportunity to work alongside Iron Gate and MOOD Publishing to bring this universe into comics is extraordinary. And we've assembled an absolute army of creative talent to do it. We're not interested in simply retelling what millions of players have already experienced. We want to explore the legends that haven't been told, the corners of this world that haven't been seen, and create something that feels worthy of the incredible universe Iron Gate built. This is Valheim, and we're going to make it epic."

The comic marks another expansion for Valheim, which has now sold more than 17 million copies worldwide since launching into Steam Early Access in February 2021. The game has already made the jump to tabletop gaming with Valheim: The Board Game, also developed in partnership with MOOD Publishing.

For now, there's no specific release date beyond Q1 2027, and details about individual issues, collectible editions, and how fans can get involved are still to come. In the meantime, Valheim players can look forward to exploring the tenth realm without having to worry about keeping their food buffs topped up. Which, frankly, sounds rather nice.

Producer Hidemaro Fujibayashi explained why the development team behind the Ocarina of Time Remake toned down the ReDeads to make them less scary.

If you grew up playing the original Ocarina of Time on the Nintendo 64, you were probably traumatized by some of the game’s famously frightening enemies like the Gibdos, ReDeads, and Dead Hands. These last two were particularly terrifying for young players at the time — partially because we were still kids, and partially due to the N64’s graphical limitations that forced our minds to fill in the visual gaps in the monsters’ designs.

These enemies were a particular talking point when the Remake was first announced. Some players were doubtful that this new game could truly capture the terror of the original monsters, since a) it’s a game that’s also supposed to appeal to children and b) the updated graphics of modern Nintendo consoles don’t necessarily allow for the ‘fear of the unknown’ phenomena afforded to low-fidelity titles like 1999's Silent Hill. (There’s an entire genre of indie horror games that pursue this aesthetic for a reason, after all.)

Speaking with Gamespot, producer Hidemaro Fujibayashi explained that the Remake’s updated graphics actually made the ReDeads extremely scary at first. And while the development team was supposedly enthusiastic about this aspect of the project, he and fellow producer Eiji Aonuma felt that this detail wasn’t necessarily true to the original experience of the first game.

"With this remake, the graphics are a lot improved, and so the ReDead – the sound, the graphics, and the movement – ended up being very, very scary,” Fujibayashi said. “And the staff wanted to make this in service of making a good gameplay experience. But from our perspective, taking a step back, we felt like, ‘Let's remember the experience that we don't want to change, and taking that into consideration, maybe we've gone a step too far, so let's dial it back.’"

That being said, plenty of players feel that the Remake’s ReDeads are still sufficiently terrifying. Social media is rife with hilarious reactions from fans’ first encounters with the enemies, with both Western and Japanese players having a “nope, f**k this,” mentality after first coming across them in the game.

これが令和のリーデッド

オリジナルのポリゴンデザインよりグロテスクになっててチビる

#時のオカリナ https://t.co/9k1XpH3NZs

The ReDeads have eyes this time https://t.co/UBBqZf41SW

THEY RUN AT YOU NOW???? https://t.co/fqkgDWaoU8

Others are hopeful that, should other Zelda remakes get produced, Nintendo makes its other enemies equally scary — especially since these new ReDeads are far more mobile than their predecessors.

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Remake has, perhaps unsurprisingly, proven to be a smash hit for Nintendo; the game sold over five million copies in just four days and released to rave reviews from both fans and critics. IGN’s Logan Plant scored the title a glowing 9 out of 10, praising it for “skillfully melding the world and dungeon design of classic Zeldas with the movement and presentation of its more recent games, creating both a beautiful retelling of a legend and a rich adventure that stands on its own.”

Image Credit: BoundaryBreak, Twitter/X

When Halo: Campaign Evolved first came out in July it did not include any multiplayer modes, but the first-person shooter remake will at least get Firefight as a free update this winter.

Xbox CEO Asha Sharma announced the returning mode in a social media post Thursday, along with a graphic showing a team of Spartans shooting a mix of Covenant and Flood enemies with various guns.

While Firefight isn't the arena competitive multiplayer that most fans had hoped from the Halo remake at launch, wave-based PvE has been a mainstay in the series since Halo 3: ODST in 2009. Essentially, you and your friends load into a map and fight increasingly difficult waves of enemies until you get overwhelmed. There's no reason to believe that this iteration is going to be any different.

Regardless of whether or not Team Deathmatch comes to Halo: Campaign Evolved, this will be the first multiplayer mode to hit the remake, which was pitched primarily as a straight-up revival of the iconic Combat Evolved campaign. Multiplayer was the major piece missing from Campaign Evolved, and this could be a sign that more multiplayer modes will be added in the future.

IGN's Halo: Combat Evolved remake gave it a 7. We said: "Halo: Campaign Evolved speaks to the series' timelessness and adds a decent set of new missions, but it's a mostly a lean retread that's more of a test run for its future with Unreal Engine."

This Firefight announcement comes as Xbox celebrates its 25th anniversary. Earlier today, Sharma looked ahead, predicting "a single person will soon be able to wield capabilities that once required entire nations."

As for Halo, following the summer's drastic cuts at Microsoft's gaming business, Xbox announced a significant reshuffle that saw the next mainline Halo game handed to Call of Duty developer Activision, which is spinning up a new team to work on the franchise. Mass layoffs hit Halo Studios at the same time.