We Love It's Guide to…
Lead mixed-species crews through storm-threatened forests, building temporary settlements and managing scarce resources to satisfy the Queen.
Released 08 Dec 2023
Build Temporary Settlements
Explore Hidden Clearings
Balance Five Species
A dark fantasy city builder where you must rebuild civilization in the face of apocalyptic rains. As the Queen’s Viceroy, lead humans, beavers, lizards, foxes, and harpies to reclaim the wilderness and secure a future for civilization's last survivors.
Developed by Eremite Games · Published by Hooded Horse
Themes from a helpfulness-selected sample of Steam reviews, not the aggregate Steam score.
As the Queen’s Viceroy, you establish settlements in a wilderness battered by apocalyptic storms, gathering resources and searching for riches to support the Smoldering City. Humans, beavers, lizards, foxes, and harpies live in your settlements, each with different strengths and needs.
Explore forest clearings to uncover resources, events, and dangers, then build production chains to turn raw materials into supplies and goods. Assign workers, trade with visiting merchants, fulfill orders, and balance residents’ needs while keeping pressure on your settlement under control.
Each settlement is a fresh expedition with changing biomes, resources, blueprints, and perks. Earn reputation to complete its goals before the Queen’s impatience overwhelms you, then move on to another settlement. Resources and upgrades from expeditions carry forward to improve the Smoldering City across the larger campaign.
Players often praise the changing mix of maps, species, buildings, and events, which makes each settlement a resource-management puzzle that rewards adapting rather than following a fixed routine. Many also enjoy the focused settlement runs, which keep the game moving before city-building turns into a long late game, and mention its atmosphere and music. Some players find the repeated fresh starts, time pressure, or high-difficulty randomness tiring, especially if they want to develop one lasting city.
You are the Viceroy – a leader charged by the Scorched Queen to reclaim the wilderness and discover lost riches for the Smoldering City, civilization's last bastion against the Blightstorm that destroyed the old world. Unlike most survival city builders where your focus is on a single city, in Against the Storm you must build a vast, prosperous network of settlements populated by diverse fantasy races, each with their own specializations and needs.
The wilderness holds many hidden dangers, and never-ending storms will batter your population into submission. If your settlements should fall, then the expedition may end – but not the game. Against the Storm is a roguelite city builder, meaning you will carry forward the resources, upgrades, and experience of your past expeditions each time you set off for a new journey into the wild.

Foxes, beavers, and lizards stand alongside humans and harpies in the struggle to survive. Utilize each group's strengths as you balance their varying needs, from housing and culinary preferences to taste in luxuries and recreation. Will you manufacture raincoats, brew ale, and bake pies to boost morale in the face of the oppressive hostility of the forest, or will you prioritize the needs of one species over another to operate more swiftly for the Scorched Queen?

Experience core city builder gameplay enhanced by roguelite replayability. Build and manage multiple settlements spread out across a large world map, all while collecting valuable meta-progression resources to upgrade the Smoldering City. Feel the pressure of an expectant monarch as the Scorched Queen demands constant progress while recurring Blightstorms pose an inevitable threat to your settlements. Manage your reputation to secure your success at any one settlement before moving on to establish another, constantly seeking new opportunities for growth, taking on unique challenges across multiple biomes, and bracing for the inevitable destruction of everything but the Smoldering City itself. How will you maximize each cycle to not just ensure the best fate for the Smoldering City, but for your career as Viceroy as well?

With hundreds of gameplay modifiers and 6 distinct biomes, every city location presents unique challenges for even the most resourceful Viceroy. Adjust your strategy to changing weather conditions and experiment with rosters of building blueprints and perks that can help your society thrive or bring it to ruin. Will you take on and complete additional objectives and delve deeper into the dangerous forest for potential boons, or will you approach with caution to ensure you operate within your capabilities? All the while, you never know what wares the Trader will bring next year, and the forest holds treasures and resources, but also ancient threats.

Laying the foundations for a new city is one of the most exciting moments in a city-building game. In Against the Storm, you'll have the opportunity to repeatedly experience this by creating new settlements, while still interacting with your network of previously established cities in a growing world.
| Platforms | Windows |
|---|---|
| Achievements | 80 |
| Age ratings |
|
| Controller required | No |
| Demo | View demo on Steam |
| DLC / extras | 3 listed on Steam |
| Metacritic | 91/100 View on Metacritic |
| Website | Official website |
Games similar to Against the Storm