Boars aren’t the only animals you can tame in Valheim. If you’re patient — and have the will to succeed — you can create a self-perpetuating army of monster hunters on your starting island. Yes, you can breed killer wolves that’ll team up with you. You can get up to four wolves to follow you around while you’re hunting big bads, and if you’re really patient, you can even breed 2-Star wolves for a true horde of unstoppable killing machines.
Wolves are difficult critters that only appear in the Mountains biome. Wolves are extremely fast, so catching one can be a little tricky. Wolves also eat Raw Meat — and they’ll hunt all by themselves. Once you start taming Wolves, they can breed like crazy. They’ll eat everything on the island, wipe out monsters, and breed while they’re in a satisfied state.
Wolves are slightly trickier to deal with than boars, so let’s talk about how to tame these killer creatures.
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 & Craft Portals | How To Find Haldor The Trader | How To Unlock The Best Weapons
How To Tame Wolves
Wolf taming is very similar to boar taming — you just need to lure wolves into an enclosed area and feed them Raw Meat. There are some extra challenges when it comes to wolves. So let’s just go over the basics.
- To tame Wolves, you need to feed them Raw Meat. They’ll only eat when not in a state of aggro — so you can’t stand right next to them.
- Many wolves only spawn at night. They’ll despawn during the day if you get too far away from them.
- Wolves that spawn at night will only eat at night.
- Wolves are only found in the Mountains biome. Drakes will also attempt to kill wolves no matter their state.
- To tame wolves, you’ll want to build a small enclosure and throw Raw Meat inside. About 10-12 should be enough. Build a roof to protect the wolf from drake attacks.
Make sure to stand far enough away so you don’t trigger aggro on the wolf, and try to stay close enough to the wolf so it doesn’t despawn. As long as you’re in visual range, you’re okay. Mouse over the wolf to check its status.
Don’t worry, your future cubs will not despawn. But you’ll have to do a lot of waiting to get those cubs.
How To Breed Wolves
Just like boars, you’ll need to tame two wolves. Feed both wolves so they’ve got the “Happy” status, and they’ll be open to breeding. Two tame “Happy” wolves can breed with each other — but it’s totally random. And with wolves you’ve tamed, you run the chance of them despawning.
Another annoyance — tamed wolves that spawned at night only eat at night. So you’ll have to wait sitting near a wolf for a full day cycle if it’s daylight, which is usually will be. This part of the process takes forever. You’ll need to keep the tamed wolves in an enclosure.
You can also breed 2-Star Wolves, and their wolf cub baby will also have 2-Stars. That means they’re significantly more powerful, but these wolves will always only spawn at night, making them a pain to breed. Any night-spawn wolves also despawn if you get too far away.
2-Star Wolves are not guaranteed to give birth to 2-Star cubs. There’s about a 50/50 chance they’ll be a 1-Star cub. That’s still significantly stronger than a normal wolf, so it’s not a bad result.
- NOTE: Wolf Cubs bred from night wolves will not despawn. The original wolves will eventually despawn when you leave the area, but the wolf cubs will stay forever.
Once you have your wolves, you can leave them to breed on their own or keep them in a cage. You can get up to four to follow you anywhere — and they can ride on boats, but it takes a little extra work to get them onboard.
Wolves let loose will breed. They’ll hunt and eat animals — after eating the raw meat, they’ll be in a “Happy” status. Before long, your island will be overrun by howling wolves. If that’s a future that sounds cool to you, I say go for it. Otherwise you can limit yourself to 1-4 dog companions.
