Valheim allows its players to capture, tame, and farm different animals for the materials players need. But the game's most recent update, Hearth and Home, has brought dramatic changes to this system. No longer can Valheim players use any weapon to harvest their tamed animals; instead, they need to look to the Butcher Knife.

This new weapon in Valheim has a unique ability that changes how people harvest their tamed animals. But how it's made and how it exactly works in the game can be challenging to understand. For those players looking to take advantage of the Butcher Knife, this guide is here to help.

How to Make a Butcher Knife
As with all other weapons in Valheim, there is a cost for making the Butcher Knife. This new addition with the Hearth and Home update asks players to gather 2 Wood and 4 Tin. This is a relatively low price for most players and just requires the lowest level of pickaxe. At the minimum, players will have needed to defeat the first boss, Eikthyr, and have been able to craft a Forge to make a Butcher Knife.

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Tin Ore dots the riverbanks and coastlines of the Black Forest Biome of Valheim. Just a couple of deposits should be enough to gather the required amount, and players then need to head to their Smelter. Combining Tin Ore and Coal in a Smelter gives the player their needed Tin.

The other material, Wood, can be gathered by picking up branches, chopping trees down, or destroying the wooden structures that dot the world. Once the required materials have been gathered, players can build a Butcher Knife at a Forge.

How to Use the Butcher Knife
The Butcher Knife in Valheim has an interesting ability: it can only be used to kill tamed animals. As the name implies, this creation is used exclusively for butchering animals, so even wild animals are safe from it. It has the potential to deal up to a wild 500 damage with each swing, nearly guaranteeing a quick kill on any of the various animals players can tame. This even includes the massive Lox in Valheim.

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Before Valheim's Hearth and Home Update, any weapon could be used to kill animals, and players remarked that it often led to accidental deaths. Now the Butcher Knife is the only way. Striking at a player's tamed animals with any other weapon should result in no damage (unless friendly fire is on). And the opposite is true for the Butcher Knife: hitting anything from Greydwarfs to wild boar with this weapon will result in no damage being done.

Valheim is available now in Early Access on PC.