Valheim Console Commands

There are two steps and both are required. First, add -console to the game’s launch options: in Steam, right-click Valheim, choose Properties, and type it into the Launch Options field. This is what makes the console exist at all.

Then, in game, press F5 to open the console and type devcommands. That is what unlocks the cheat commands specifically — without it the console opens and accepts input but the interesting commands do nothing. devcommands replaced the older imacheater line, which is still printed on plenty of guides and no longer works.

Running devcommands a second time switches cheats back off, and it resets when you quit, so it has to be re-entered each session.

One limitation is absolute: cheat commands only work in single player or in a world you are hosting yourself. On a dedicated server they do nothing at all, regardless of whether you own the server.

spawn takes three arguments in a fixed order: the item name, how many you want, and the level. Amount and level are both optional, so spawn Wood on its own gives you one piece of wood.

The level argument means different things depending on what you are spawning. On a creature it is the star rating — level 2 is a one-star enemy, level 3 is two stars. On an item it is the quality, which is the upgrade tier a crafting station would have given it.

Case sensitivity is the thing that catches everyone. The internal names are capitalised, so Wood, Stone, Coal and Flint all work and their lower-case versions do not. There is no error message when you get it wrong — the console simply accepts the line and nothing appears, which reads exactly like the console not working at all.

Spawned creatures appear directly in front of you and are immediately hostile if they would normally be hostile, so spawning something large while standing in your own base is a way to lose your base.

Using cheats is reported to switch achievements off for the current session, with them returning after a clean restart without devcommands enabled. That is a milder penalty than most games apply and it is not a permanent mark on the save.

The command most likely to cause a genuine problem is goto, which teleports you to a coordinate. Terrain in Valheim loads around the player, and arriving somewhere before the ground has generated means falling through the world. Turning fly on first is the standard precaution — you hover while the terrain appears underneath you, then switch it off.

pos prints your current coordinates, which is how you get the numbers goto needs in the first place. Note them down before travelling somewhere you want to come back from.