Portals give you the power to quickly travel vast distances in Valheim. With the right portal placement, you’ll never be too far from your home base. That’s good news, because if you want to progress up those technology tiers, you’ll have to explore the vast wilderness of this mythological realm. There’s no way to find better ores (and new crafting recipes) without leaving the safety of your first biome.
And that’s why Portals aren’t just needed, they’re basically required. If you’re wondering how to unlock the portal recipe and start warping around the world with ease, we’ve got all the details below. Earning the portal is a whole quest — you’ll need to defeat the first boss, use your first pickaxe, and forge ingots to make an improved axe before you’ll even be able to begin.
Learn the ins-and-outs of portals in Valheim with the full guide below.
More Valheim guides:
12 Tips The Game Doesn’t Explain | Beginner’s Guide | How To Tame & Breed Boars | Comprehensive Healing Potion Crafting Guide | 4 Tips To Improve FPS Performance | 9 Tips To Survive The Swamps | How To Summon All Bosses | Best Mods List | How To Move Loot Easier | Inventory Guide
How To Unlock The Portal Crafting Recipe
The Portal is unlocking in your hammer build menu once you obtain your first Fine Wood material. Getting Fine Wood isn’t easy — you’ll need to complete multiple early steps in the game before you’re able to start harvesting Fine Wood from Birch and Oak trees in the Meadow biome.
- How To Get Fine Wood & Unlock The Portal
- To get Fine Wood, you need to first defeat Eikthyr, the stag boss enemy of the Meadows biome.
- Use the stones at your spawn point to locate a Mystical Altar. Sacrifice x3 Deer Trophies to summon the boss.
- Defeat Eikthyr to gain x3 Hard Antler — which you can use to craft the Antler Pickaxe. Use the Antler Pickaxe to mine Copper and Tin Ore in the Black Forest.
- Construct a Forge, and then combine x2 Copper and x1 Tin to create x1 Bronze Ingot.
- Once you have bronze, you’ll be able to construct the Bronze Axe. Now you can cut down the white trees in the Meadows biome and unlock Fine Wood crafting recipes.
- To get Fine Wood, you need to first defeat Eikthyr, the stag boss enemy of the Meadows biome.
There are other ways to get Fine Wood. You can lure Trolls to smash and attack the trees until you can collect the wood, or you can loot the wrecked ships on the water of the Black Forest to find Fine Wood. Either way, once you get Fine Wood, you’ll be able to craft Portals.
How To Craft Portals
- Portal Materials: Under “Misc” — x20 Fine Wood, x10 Greydwarf Eyes, x2 Surtling Core
Greydwarf Eyes drop from Greydwarf enemies. You’ll find plenty of them in the Black Forest biome. Surtling Cores drop from Surtlings, which are found in the Swamps biome.
Portals can be found under the “Misc” category when using the Hammer. They need to be build within range of a Workbench to function correctly.
All metals and metal ores (Tin, Copper, Bronze, Iron, Silver, etc) prevent travelling through a portal. You’ll have to walk metal ore back to your bases on foot. Other materials like wood and your weapons / armor can be transported through portals. Dragon Eggs are also prohibited from travelling through portals.
How The Portals Works
To travel through a portal, you’ll need to build two. Each portal is connected via tag — press [E] on a portal to type in a case-sensitive tag. Any two portals with the same tag are connected.
Portals allow you to quickly travel between two far-off locations. There are downsides — like I said above, you can’t move any metals or metal ores through portals. If you build an outpost on the other side of the portal and craft weapons / armor, then you can freely travel through the portal. Don’t ask me why. It’s just Metal Ore / Ingots you can’t transport.
Let’s go over some ways you can make the most use out of your portals.
Portal Tips & Tricks
- You only need to build 1 Portal at your home base. That one portal can link to any number of portals. As you build more portals, name them after the different biomes they’re located in. Then you can just change the tag at your home base to travel to any of them.
- Don’t forget that tags are case-sensitive.
- Bring the materials needed to build a portal with you before attempting any tough challenges. Having a portal is incredibly useful for attempting tough bosses like the Elder or Bonemass. Plop down your portal if you think you’re going to die — it can be a life-saver just giving yourself access to food and health potions.