Butcher Knife is a special weapon used to gather resources from tamed animals. A Butcher Knife will gut and skin any tamed animal in one hit, but has no effect on wild beasts.
How to Craft
You’ll need a Forge, 2 Wood and 4 Tin to craft a Butcher Knife
You can find the necessary resources to both build a Forge and craft a Butcher Knife in the Black Forest
Wood is the most basic resource in Valheim. It can be picked up from the ground and harvested by chopping down any tree. You’ll need an axe to chop down trees. The most basic Stone Axe is crafted directly from your inventory crafting menu without any tools by combining 5 Wood and 4 Stone.
You can just pick up loose branches like thisTiny trees like this can be punched for lumber without any toolsCrafting a Stone Axe from the inventory screen
Tin is one of the ores you’ll find in the Black Forest. It spawns in small veins close to the biome’s shore and is silvery in color. You’ll need a pickaxe to gather Tin ore. You’ll then need to process it in a Smelter (Stone x20, Surtling Core x5) into workable Tin bars.
When you have 2 Wood and 4 Tin, head to a Forge (Stone x4, Coal x4, Wood x10, Copper x6). Select the Butcher Knife in the Forge crafting menu and hit the big Craft button. Once crafted, a Butcher Knife can’t be upgraded any further.
Mining Tin oreA sample smelting areaCrafting a Butcher Knife at a Forge
How to Use
Equip a Butcher Knife as a weapon
Hit a tamed animal with the knife by clicking the left mouse button
A Butcher Knife works much like a regular weapon. You put it on your hotbar or right click it in your inventory to equip it. Then, aim at the target you want to butcher and hit the left mouse button. Due to the Butcher Knife’s high base damage (1000), it will finish off any of your tamed animals in a single hit. Then, don’t forget to pick up the loot. If you want to repair a Butcher Knife after it’s lost some of its durability, you can do so back at the Forge by hitting the hammer icon to the left of its crafting menu.
Using a Butcher Knife against anything other than a tamed animal will result in a swinging animation that will deal no damage, so don’t even try using it against wild beasts or other monsters. Similarly, using a regular weapon against a tamed creature won’t do anything, making it easier to defend your base from monster invasion events without worrying about accidentally hitting your pets.
Approach a pet boar and hit it with the Butcher Knife to harvest its resourcesHitting a wild boar with the Butcher Knife does nothing
Helpful Tips
The Butcher Knife can be wielded as a weapon, but it doesn’t have a secondary attack like most regular weapons do
Enabling friendly fire allows you to damage tamed creatures with regular weapons, making the Butcher Knife unnecessary
Share this article:
Val Hull
Resident role-playing RPG game expert. Knows where trolls and paladins come from. You must fight for your right to gather your party before venturing forth.
