So, you’ve swapped out your rags for troll tunics, your stone axe for a shiny bronze one, and put all that fine wood to good use to make a fancy bow. Now you’re wondering what’s next? Sweet, sweet iron, my friend.
By now you probably have a blast furnace and a forge, and have been smelting down the copper and tin deposits you’ve found around Black Forests, Meadows, and the shoreline. If not, do this first so you can make bronze Valheim weapons, as well as new armour, and bronze nails to craft a much better boat than the rickety wooden raft a sea serpent inevitably ate.
Many materials are locked behind Valheim’s progression system, and you need to defeat bosses one by one to open up better tools. Without the antler pick axe from the first boss, you can’t mine copper or tin to build better bronze gear, or a build cauldron to create mead recipes for battles. It’s almost impossible to skip this step and go straight to iron, so have patience. Here’s exactly how you acquire iron in Valheim and everything you can craft once it’s yours.
How to get iron in Valheim
You need to take on the second boss, The Elder, to get iron in Valheim. It’s a tall, lumbering tree giant found in a Black Forest biome. Once defeated, it’ll drop a swamp key, which opens crypts in the swamp biome. We just want to emphasise here that the swamp biome is tough, not as bad as insta-death from a roaming Plains deathsquito, but still a challenge. Here you’ll encounter new enemies in the form of a blob (actually formless) which applies poison over time, as well as draugrs and skeletons.
When tackling the swamp, equip plenty of poison resistance mead and keep yourself topped up with food. If you’re not sure how to craft potions, check out our Valheim fermenter guide. The crypts are like burial chambers; a compact underground maze filled with chests, loot, and a lot of enemies. Here you’ll find muddy piles, which you can mine for materials. Muddy piles drop all sorts, among them withered bones, leather scraps, and… scrap iron! You can also find these muddy piles in the swamp using the Wishbone that the third boss, Bonemass, drops. This is the most formidable boss in the game, so we recommend scouting some crypts for iron before taking him on.
Use the scrap iron in the furnace like you would the tin and copper ores, and iron ingots will pop out the other end, opening up a bunch of recipes, gear, and new equipment for building, including a stonecutter for stone walls.
Valheim iron items
Here are all the items that include iron in the crafting recipe:
- Ancient Bark Spear
- Banded Shield
- Battle axe
- Huntsman Bow
- Iron Greaves
- Iron Helmet
- Iron Atgeir
- Iron Axe
- Iron Longsword
- Iron Mace
- Iron Nails
- Iron Pickaxe
- Iron Scale Mail
- Iron Sledge
- Iron Tower Shield
- Ironhead Arrow
- Forge Toolrack
- Reinforced Chest
- Personal Chest
- Iron Torch
- Stonecutter
- Smith’s Anvil
- Iron Pole
- Iron Beam
- Iron Gate
- Padded Cuirass
- Padded Greaves
- Padded Helmet
- Porcupine
- Arbalest
- Carapace Breastplate
- Carapace Greaves
- Demolisher
- Eitrweave Hood
- Iron Bolt
- Jotun Blade
- Krom
- Mechanical Spring
- Mistwalker
- Skoll and Hati
- Skull Splittur
Now that you know how to find iron in Valheim, take a break from the fighting to focus on building in Valheim, or upgrade your workbench to access better gear.
