Against the Storm Review – City Building as a Roguelike Construction Strategy in Test

Full Release – Cute, but complex construction game leaves Early Access

In the strategy game Against the Storm, our country is ravaged by terrible magical storms that regularly tear everything down. At least everything we build outside the capital. Nevertheless, we must move out, search for the causes of the storm, and keep building new outposts under various difficult conditions.

We build small settlements for the queen of our kingdom, in which up to five different people live, each with their own needs. To begin with, we have a handful of buildings at our disposal, but over time this selection expands to dozens of different ones. Against the Storm was developed by Eremite Games and published by Hooded Horse, it was released on Steam and the Epic Games Store on December 8th, 2024, and costs $29.99.

I received a free review sample for this review, but this shouldn’t affect my rating as I always test all games with the thought in mind, “How would I feel if I had paid the full price”.

Against the Storm – Background – Early Access End and Full Release

Against the Storm was already in Early Access for several months, received an enormous number of updates during this time, and has now been converted into a full version with version 1.0. So it’s now “finished”, in quotation marks.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get really warm with Against the Storm at the beginning of Early Access, even though it actually looked very cute and interesting. But the gameplay seemed relatively monotonous to me at the time and the choice of buildings was quite limited, at least that’s how it seemed at first.

And then I got over it and forgot about it. There have probably been dozens of updates and new features since then, and today Against the Storm is in version 1.0 and leaving Early Access.

So it’s “finished” development for now. To what extent there will be more updates after that is unclear, but in the current version it has definitely become a really well-rounded game and I took a closer look and was very surprised at how strategic, complex, and exciting the game can be.

What is Against the Storm about? The game concept briefly explained

Okay, a short explanation is difficult here. Because Against the Storm looks very simple at the beginning, but over time it develops into a game with extremely extensive possibilities.

Against the Storm is often advertised as a city-building and village-building sim. But I think that’s a bad description. It’s actually much more of a strategic board game with procedural maps that represent short levels. Roughly summarized, it’s a strategic rogue-like village-building game.

And it’s completely pacifist, there are no battles or attacks from other races. Our biggest threat is the supernatural storm, and difficulties and conflicts are not solved by fighting, but by small quests, where you usually have to deliver certain goods.

The most aggressive thing that happens to us are quests that bring debuffs on our settlement at intervals if we don’t solve them, and of course the Queen’s ever-growing impatience.

No giant settlements, but constantly new, small villages, with changing requirements

The aim of Against the Storm is not to build a single fancy giant settlement and work on the same town forever. Instead, we do this continuously from scratch in order to reach certain locations and goals on the regional map.

We play small maps and missions in order to unlock progress for our advancement on the larger regional map. This allows for pleasantly short gaming sessions, which I find quite enjoyable to simply play on the side. But if you get really hooked, you have plenty of opportunities for unlocks and long-term motivation.

We build a small settlement within 30-60 minutes and defy the adversities of the storm. The maps are procedurally generated, so we have slightly different conditions and requirements each time we start a new map.

We fulfill tasks for the queen, preferably before her impatience with us becomes too great. Because then the settlement has failed and we only get a small consolation prize reward.

However, if we complete enough tasks so that our reputation with this settlement grows faster than their impatience, the settlement is considered a success. Then we get more rewards and can progress on the regional map.

Roguelike city building – Always from scratch, but always different, and it grows in total

Because we would like to find out the reason for the storm and put an end to it. Otherwise, its strength increases so much every few rounds that all settlements except the capital are swept away and destroyed. Then the cycle starts all over again, and we have to start anew from the capital.

But of course we keep all the unlocked buildings and improvements, so we keep the important part of our progress. This is where the game has a slight Rogue-like, or as they say, Roguelight element. We lose everything from time to time, but we get improvements in the bigger picture that make the next attempt more promising.

So every settlement is just an outpost, and ultimately doomed anyway. But we get resources as a reward, which we can use to improve ourselves and our outpost team. We also get more and more buildings in our repertoire, as well as small buffs and bonuses that make it possible to build better settlements. This allows us to build ever more effective and faster settlements over time and advance into even more dangerous areas.

City planning, strategy, and the different tribes

In the beginning, we only have inhabitants from two of the five races available and very, very little choice when it comes to buildings. In addition to the humans, there are also beavers, harpies, and lizards as well as a fifth race, which is only added very late.

But of course, the storm is not so bad at the beginning. Each race has special requirements in terms of food, drink, pleasure, recreation, etc., but also special abilities. Beavers, for example, are particularly good at felling trees and they often have a bonus in woodworking companies.

Basically, there are dozens of materials and almost as many different buildings, most of which can also produce several different things, and we can also set which raw materials are used to build certain things.

For example, when we produce drinks in the brewery, we can specify whether they should be brewed from grain, vegetables, or worms, or with which priorities if we have everything available. This gives the game enormous strategic depth and the principle is repeated in many places. Even in tasks where we have to deliver goods, for example, we can often decide which of the 3-5 goods available to choose from we really want to deliver.

Against the Storm – opinion and conclusion

As I said, the game didn’t appeal to me at all at the Early Access launch. But it probably wasn’t so good at making it clear to me where the journey was going. I built up a village and suddenly it was destroyed again, which I found stupid at first and I was demotivated. That’s why I abandoned the game quite quickly.

Today, however, ATS can offer and explain this much better. This made it clearer to me what it was really about. Then it suddenly made sense and the whole game became more motivating and really entertaining.

And now I’ve had a lot of fun with it and will probably take it out every now and then. Against The Storm is also a good game to play in between when you don’t have much time and only want to play for half an hour or an hour.

It remains to be said that it never crashed for me and otherwise made a very, very mature and well-rounded impression. The Early Access phase and the many patches have done the game a lot of good and now it’s a complete and almost flawless product.

By the way, Against the Storm also runs pretty well on the Steam deck, which is where I usually play it. The texts are sometimes not so easy to read on the small screen, but since there are options to scale the interface, you can adjust that.

The roguelike elements only work halfway, at least for me. In the beginning, you progress quite well in the skill trees, unlock things more often, and have the feeling of progression. However, after a while, this becomes much slower. And that leads to the fact that you only get unlocks very, very rarely.

The objectives on the world map also feel a bit like a carrot that the donkey is chasing because it’s being held in front of its nose. Because you almost never reach these goals, the time frames for them are so tight that there is usually a big storm wave that sweeps away all the settlements and then you have to start all over again. You keep all the unlocks, boosts, and buildings, but I still got the feeling that the game was extremely drawn out.

All in all, I would say that Against the Storm is a very interesting strategy game and, after some initial comprehension problems, I’m now really captivated by it.

The price of €29.90 is not particularly cheap for an indie title, but it’s still halfway okay. At the latest, when you get it with a discount, you can go for it if you like strategy and complex village building.

Against the Storm Review – Rating

For just under $30 you get a complex strategy game that now, in the release version, also offers a very mature and well-rounded gaming experience. I couldn’t find any bugs, the game offers a high replay value and sufficient long-term motivation.

I therefore give Against the Storm an 80% rating in the release version. For a higher rating, the endgame would have to be a little more captivating and the price a little more attractive, so you can add a few percent to this if the game is on sale.

Against the Storm

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Full Release – Cute, but complex construction game leaves Early Access

In the strategy game Against the Storm, our country is ravaged by terrible magical storms that regularly tear everything down. At least everything we build outside the capital. Nevertheless, we must move out, search for the causes of the storm, and keep building new outposts under various difficult conditions.

Graphics

Sound

Build-Up Strategy

Roguelike Systems

State of the Game

Scope of the Game

Fun per Price

Rating

For just under $30 you get a complex strategy game that now, in the release version, also offers a very mature and well-rounded gaming experience. I couldn’t find any bugs, the game offers a high replay value and sufficient long-term motivation.

I therefore give Against the Storm an 80% rating in the release version. For a higher rating, the endgame would have to be a little more captivating and the price a little more attractive, so you can add a few percent to this if the game is on sale.

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