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Game pageAgainst the Storm: Features, Player Impressions, and Who It Suits
Against the Storm is a roguelite city builder built around short-lived settlements. Each one asks you to assemble a working economy from the resources you find and the Blueprints you are offered.
Its appeal depends on whether you want to keep developing a stable city or start again with a new set of shortages and building choices.
What makes it fun
Build with what you get
Choose blueprints and cornerstones around the resources you have and what your species need. Finding a substitute or trading for a missing link makes a production chain you pieced together come alive.
Open the glade or wait?
A glade may hold useful resources or an event that needs attention. Weighing forest Hostility against your supplies before cutting through gives exploration its tension.
Start fresh, then do it again
Build up production where food and buildings are scarce, then move to another site once you have earned enough Reputation. Different resources and species make you rethink how to get each settlement started.
Game details
As of Oct 29, 2026- Steam Deck
- Playable
- Release date
- Dec 9, 2023
- Developer
- Eremite Games
- Languages
- Japanese, English (Full audio), Simplified Chinese, Korean ／ 18 languages total
A typical run
Choose a site on the World Map, then check its biome and modifiers before selecting embarkation goods.
Gather wood and food, build housing and production facilities, and weigh the available Orders and Blueprints against what the settlement has.
Cutting through the forest reveals Glades. They may contain resources and ruins, or a Glade Event that needs attention.
As Drizzle, Clearance, and Storm pass, Resolve and Hostility change. Before a Storm, you may need to reassign woodcutters and adjust fuel, production, and consumption.
A regular settlement succeeds when it fills the Reputation bar, after which you move on. In the Sealed Forest, you work toward the objectives required to reforge an Ancient Seal.
Core systems
Reputation and Queen's Impatience
In a regular settlement, filling Reputation means success; filling Queen's Impatience means failure. Orders, high Resolve, and certain Glade Events can provide Reputation.
Reputation lowers Impatience, but higher Impatience also suppresses Hostility. You can turn in a completed Order before the Storm or hold it until the Storm has passed.
Resolve
Species have different needs for food, housing, clothing, and Services. Reaching a species' Resolve threshold generates Reputation; falling below a safe level risks villagers leaving.
When goods are scarce, you can direct Complex Food and Services toward a species close to generating Reputation. Watch the other species' Resolve so they stay.
Hostility
Passing years, population growth, and opened Glades raise Hostility. It lowers Resolve, and during the Storm it activates Forest Mysteries tied to its level.
Another Glade might contain a missing resource, but opening it can make the next Storm harder. Remove woodcutters, sacrifice fuel, or wait to expand if the current economy can carry you through.
Blueprints and Cornerstones
Blueprints add buildings; Cornerstones change production or settlement rules. The offers change from one settlement to the next.
Look for a choice that works with visible raw materials, species needs, and recipes you already have. A promising long-term effect will not fix a food or building-material shortage right now.
Glades and Glade Events
Glades may hold resources or ruins. Events in Dangerous Glades can harm the settlement if neglected. Each solution has its own supply cost, effect while work is under way, and reward.
You can gather supplies and assign workers before opening a Glade, or enter expecting to buy a missing item from a Trader. Exploration adds options along with Hostility and unresolved threats.
Orders
The Queen's objectives can award Reputation, villagers, goods, Blueprints, and other benefits.
Before choosing a reward, check whether your current resources and buildings can meet the objective. If an Order is impractical, Resolve and Glade Events offer other ways to earn Reputation.
Cycles and the Smoldering City Cycles and Smoldering City
You establish settlements across the World Map toward Ancient Seals. A completed Cycle clears the settlements from the map, while Smoldering City unlocks remain.
The next tile's reward is only part of the choice. With the remaining Cycle in mind, you choose a route toward a Seal and decide which modifiers and World Events to take along the way.
What sets it apart
A settlement reaches its success condition as its economy starts to work, then you move on instead of expanding the finished city indefinitely.
A memorized build order is unreliable. Offered Blueprints, species, biome, and revealed Glades determine which production routes are available.
Queen's Impatience provides the time pressure. Earning Reputation can push it back.
Learning curve and difficulty
You can choose difficulty from Settler through Viceroy. Prestige adds further conditions beyond those settings.
Trace a desired finished good back to its raw inputs, then identify the step your buildings cannot cover. Substitute ingredients or trade can connect the chain.
Remove woodcutters before a Storm, hold a completed Order, or redirect scarce goods toward a species that can earn Reputation. Those short timing choices matter.
The Queen's Hand Trial has separate progression and restarts the attempt after a failed settlement. That makes the route you choose on the World Map consequential.
Builds and playstyles
Resolve push
Concentrate Complex Food, species housing, and Services on a chosen species to earn Reputation through Resolve. Consumption Control keeps scarce goods from being used elsewhere while the other villagers remain safe from leaving.
Trade-supported economy
Earn Amber through Trade Routes, then buy from Traders what a missing production step or Glade Event requires. Keep track of food committed to packs so it does not get treated as stock you can sell.
Tools and caches
Produce or buy Tools, then send Abandoned Caches from Glades to the Smoldering City for Reputation. Finding more caches means opening more forest, so plan how to contain Hostility.
Controlled expansion
Open only the Dangerous Glades you need and build around known resources and trade. You forgo unknown rewards, but face fewer increases in Hostility and fewer Glade Event emergencies.
What longtime players say
After enough settlements, the path from embarkation to the final Reputation push becomes familiar. Changing Blueprints and map conditions may no longer hide the repetition of that opening sequence.
Continuing to unlock the Smoldering City can feel like a long stretch of settlements. Once those unlocks are exhausted, the reason to embark again can feel thinner.
For returning players, the engaging work is reading each new set of Blueprints and resources to see what can be made, rather than executing a fixed build order.
At Prestige and in the Queen's Hand Trial, keeping a settlement running takes close attention. Planning the route and supplies for the wider Cycle adds to that fatigue.
What players like
Changing Blueprints and species have to be matched with local resources and modifiers. Players enjoy reading that particular settlement's options instead of repeating a learned build order.
For players who prefer the shortage-filled opening of a city builder, moving on when the economy stabilizes means another chance to build from scarce food and incomplete production.
Rain sounds, music, and the dark forest are a draw in their own right. They carry the mood from ordinary construction through the wait for a Storm.
Selectable difficulty allows a relaxed settlement session or a Prestige run that demands closer attention to each adjustment.
When production stalls mid-run, setting output limits, changing substitute inputs, and moving workers can get it going. Players who enjoy supply chains also like buying only the missing step through trade.
An Order that cannot be completed need not end the run. Resolve and Glade Events give players another route to Reputation after the original plan breaks down.
Buildings can be moved, production capped, and consumption controlled. Search and display tools help players find the part of the economy that needs attention.
Common complaints
Reputation can fill just as a town's production gathers momentum. Players who want to keep refining its layout and residents' lives find the move to a new settlement abrupt.
A needed Blueprint may never appear, with neither the raw material nor a substitute available from a Trader. In that situation, the outcome can feel decided by the offers rather than by a recoverable production problem.
A Storm can demand attention while a Glade Event is unresolved, Resolve drops, and production stops. Players seeking quiet construction find the constant overlap exhausting.
Smoldering City unlocks can require a tiring run of settlements. After finishing them, players also report having less to work toward.
When expansions widen the species and building pools, familiar species or a desired building can feel harder to draw.
Who it’s for
It suits players who like solving a new settlement's food and building-material shortages, then moving on once its economy works.
It fits players willing to replace a missing Blueprint with substitute ingredients or trade, and to earn Reputation through Resolve or Glade Events when Orders prove awkward.
It also suits a pause-heavy approach: inspect the coming Storm, reassign woodcutters, and change consumption before it arrives.
Who might not enjoy it
Players who want to preserve a city and keep refining its appearance and residents' lives after it stabilizes may dislike leaving at the Reputation threshold.
Players who want a planned production network to grow uninterrupted should expect Blueprint offers and Queen's Impatience to force changes.
FAQ
- Is English fully supported?
- Yes. English interface, subtitles, and full audio are supported.
- Is there cooperative play?
- No. Against the Storm is a single-player game.
- Can the difficulty be adjusted?
- Yes. You can select a basic difficulty and, through progression, take on Prestige conditions.
- Is downloadable content required?
- No. The base game includes Cycle and Seal progression. Gameplay expansions add species, biomes, buildings, Orders, and related content.
- Can a settlement continue after success?
- Yes. The main progression, however, is built around leaving for another settlement.
These impressions are based on 100 Steam reviews sorted by “Most Helpful.” They do not represent the views of all buyers.
Image: Against the Storm on Steam