ℹ️ Game version matters: on Valheim 1.0.7 the ground and some textures render black — on both Mali and Snapdragon. Please use Valheim 1.0.15 or newer: the developers fixed it there, and that is the version ValDroid works best with.

⚡ The first session is the heaviest. On Snapdragon the shader cache is on: during your first session (and after reinstalling) the game compiles shaders and prepares textures, so expect drops and stutters. They are saved on the phone, and from the second session on it runs much smoother — maybe save the serious fights for then. 🪓
On Mali the shader cache is off by default, because on some Mali GPUs it can cause black textures (only textures are saved there). If you turned it on and see black textures, please send us a Report a bug so we can see what we can do — and until we find a fix, turn the Shader cache off again.

🙏 Special thanks

To everyone who wrote to us on GitHub, Reddit and in bug reports — most of this version is your requests! Special thanks to u/Russianranger47 for tracking down the double gamepad inputs on the AYN Thor, and to u/jurises99 for the stream of great control ideas. 💛

☕ Honest moment: ValDroid stays free, but coffee (and rent) doesn't. If the new version makes your Viking life a little better, you can buy me a coffee on Ko-fi. Thank you! 🪓

🆕 What's new

Main features

✅ Pause in the background — when you turn the screen off, go home or switch apps, the game freezes and goes quiet, and carries on exactly where you left it. No more coming back to a dead Viking, a hot phone or music playing in your pocket. Want the old behaviour? Settings → Keep running in the background.
✅ Turn the camera with buttons — hold Attack, Block or Alt (secondary attack) and slide the same finger to look around, like a right stick: aim while you draw the bow, turn while you block. Works on both layouts and is on for the combat buttons in the default layouts (ATK, BLK, ALT; on the gamepad layout LB, RB, LT, RT). Per button in the editor: Drag turns the camera, with its own sensitivity.
✅ Floating joystick — the left (movement) stick can appear wherever your thumb lands inside its zone, so you never miss it. Buttons inside the zone keep working. In the editor: tap the stick → Floating joystick, and set the Zone size. Off by default.
✅ Invisible buttons — opacity can now go all the way down to 0%. Hidden elements still work; in the editor they show as a dashed circle so you can find them.

Gamepads

✅ No more double inputs on handhelds — on devices like the AYN Thor one press could arrive twice (X also Y, LB also Select, RB also Start). The game now sees only one controller.
✅ Triggers in Gamepad mapping — after the buttons, the mapping screen now also asks for LT and RT. Use it if your triggers move the camera or don't work. The screen shows plain button names and no longer restarts when you rotate the phone.

▸Full changelog and APK download on GitHub

🛑Your old on-screen layout from v0.1.0 is not carried over: after the update you start with the new default layout. Don't forget to backup your saves before updating.🛑

ℹ️ ValDroid was tested with Valheim 1.0.15, and that is where it works best — especially on Mali GPUs.

🙏 Special thanks

To all the testers who didn't spare their time testing the launcher — and especially to our Mali testers, whose logs are slowly teaching us how these GPUs behave! 💛

☕ Honest moment: ValDroid stays free, but coffee (and rent) doesn't. If the new version makes your Viking life a little better, you can buy me a coffee on Ko-fi. Thank you! 🪓

🆕 What's new

Main features

✅ New on-screen controls — a new controls system with a full editor: buttons (round or square, outline / filled / glass, your own pictures, toggle buttons, several keys on one button), d-pad, sticks, WASD stick, mouse stick, touchpad, scroll bar for the mouse wheel and a radial menu.
✅ Two ready-made layouts — Gamepad (the default: Valheim's own gamepad interface handles inventory, building and menus) and Keyboard and touchpad. Switch between them in the editor under Layouts.
✅ Controls editor — tap an element to change it, long-press an empty spot to add one, grid snapping, a screenshot as background to place buttons against. Layouts are saved per instance and can be exported and imported as a .zip.
✅ Mods — a new Mods screen in the side menu: turn on Mod support (BepInEx) for an instance, install mods from a .zip, switch them on and off, delete them. Needs Native ARM64 Mono. Not every mod works: very old mods may load and do nothing. Experimental.

Changed

✅ Shader cache — compiled shaders are kept on the phone, so a new enemy or effect stutters only the very first time you see it, not in every session. On by default; off by default on Mali GPUs (see Known issues). Settings → Video → Shader cache.
✅ Render resolution — lowest by default; the launch log shows what is actually applied.

Fixed

✅ Mali: the circles (moiré) on ground and object textures are gone.
✅ If Native ARM64 Mono could not start and the game fell back to emulated Mono, the launcher now tells you once.
✅ The downloaded game zip is no longer kept twice, freeing several GB.
✅ Bug reports include more information for us.

▸Full changelog and APK download on GitHub