Against the Storm Review: Surviving This Storm Is Hell of a Tough Thing

I already told you about the potential of Against the Storm in our impressions of the gameplay. Even at that time, it was a very interesting work, capable of attracting people with the help of individual gameplay mechanisms. However, it had its ups and downs. Now we have the final version. The following lines of our review will tell you how much the game has changed since early access.

Platform: PC (tested version)

Release date: 12.08.2023

Developer: Hermit Games

Publisher: Hood’s Horse

Genre: Roguelike Strategy

Czech localization: yes

Multiplayer: No

Data for download: 4.78 GB

Game time: 90 – 180 hours

Price: 710 CZK (Steam)

In Against the Storm, you have an impatient queen standing over you.

The end of the world takes different forms in different universes. In the Against the Storm universe, the main apocalyptic phenomenon is Morbura, which always appears after a certain amount of time and wipes out everything in its path. It doesn’t matter how beautiful your series about settlements was. After a certain amount of time, everything you managed to build will simply disappear along with them. So your task in this work is to find an answer to how to stop the whole process and give your people a chance to live better and never be forced to return to the bowels of the indestructible but grim Smoldering City.

This is the headquarters of an entire civilization, ruled by an uncompromising queen who wants results, not excuses, which she will show you time and again. In the story, you intend to build settlements that will serve as a demonstration of your ability to fulfill the wishes of the local queen. And that’s exactly what you do. You try to complete tasks and gradually expand not only the village you control, but also the range of buildings you have access to.

At the very beginning of your journey in Against the Storm, you will have to build a clearly defined number of structures. And often these are not actually structures, but mobile carts and simple stands from which the inhabitants of the new colony set off to conquer the surrounding forest. Each of the colonies here practically benefits from what the previous one did. But not because someone gave you all your resources or actively supplied them. The main thing here is the experience and new plans that you will gain during the construction.

However, you are not entirely sure of anything here. Indeed, Against the Storm is not only a strategy game, but also a roguelike, which in practice means that little is guaranteed during the game. After starting a new village, a map will always be generated for you, and the set of buildings you will have access to will also not be the same as in the previous attempt. So the basic spectrum, yes, but not the more advanced structures. You unlock these by winning the favor of the queen, which gives you access to a certain number of buildings during the mission.

Chance will not always be in your favor

The palette of what can be built is incredibly diverse by the standards of the genre. Some buildings here have several forms, each requiring slightly different conditions to operate. However, once you complete them, you will be able to produce some types of raw materials much more efficiently than if you bet on production in basic structures, which, for the same resource costs, will generate significantly less than advanced structures. In most games, you get to new buildings by making your way through the forest and completing the aforementioned challenges of your dear queen. Although you have to be lucky. If he does not wish you well, it may well happen that instead of the production chains you need, you will get ones you do not need.

It may seem like a small thing at first, but in Against the Storm, every detail often matters. For example, I once made a bet that I would create a farming settlement. It was a good idea, but the forest didn’t want me. Instead of a lot of places where I could grow crops, all I could get was an impassable forest with almost zero potential for growing anything in it. What followed, let’s talk about, was not very pleasant. Luckily, I got lucky when choosing the Queen’s letters, which give certain bonuses to the city. In one of them, I was offered cannibalism.

Although I didn’t win, the colony held out a bit longer in Against the Storm, which also counted, as I got a decent amount of experience points for managing the city. I later converted them into various permanent bonuses in the capital. While you can always count on them after activating them, you can’t count on the cities that your work helped create. The game world “always” resets after a certain amount of time via Morbours, and the only thing that remains on the map is the Smoldering City. I have to admit, the pace at which destruction approaches is relentless.

She is no less a kind queen, however. While you often have a relatively functioning settlement, if you don’t fulfill its wishes quickly enough, your journey will quickly end and you will have to build it from scratch. The enemy here is not only the queen, but also the tree itself. Although there are no spectacular fights in it, you will have to pacify its population with the help of workers. Overall, I found that survival here can be quite random at times. It only took a few bad cards or encountering places with a more serious threat for everything to go wrong. However, optimization and overall gameplay have undergone a decent revision, for which I commend the authors.

Against the Storm is a surprisingly complex strategy game

Already in early access, the roguelike strategy game Against the Storm has succeeded. During development, the creators managed to get rid of technical shortcomings, thanks to which they now have an excellent construction strategy that presents the player with an ever-changing world full of construction tasks combined with the ability to adapt. . The set is excellent in all respects.

However, in most cases, you have to accept the fact that even the best-thought-out setup can collapse if luck is not on its side. But if you are lucky, you can count on a nice building. I would recommend Against the Storm primarily to those who are not afraid of challenges, because you will find them here almost always. Personally, I would probably welcome a lesser degree of randomness, but we can never have everything.