MeinMMO editor Benedict Grothaus has a somewhat strange taste: he usually feels most comfortable in games that are really hard. For several years, Against the Storm has been the game on Steam with which he can best relax whenever everything else becomes too much.
I don’t know why, but there are moments when I just enjoy suffering. I absolutely love playing games that I can only lose, even though I should hate them. Nevertheless, it is precisely these games that keep bringing me back.
For a little over a year, I have been absolutely in love with Against the Storm. It is a “Roguelite City-Builder,” a genre that has become quite popular in recent years, especially since Frostpunk became a big success.
In Against the Storm, I have to constantly build a new village because a storm regularly destroys the world. For each round completion, there are rewards that can be spent in a meta-system for upgrades.
The game principle is actually quite simple, and the gameplay is reminiscent of Anno and Co. But Against the Storm could not be further from a relaxing building game.
One mistake and half the village is dead
Against the Storm is harsh, often unfair, and does not forgive mistakes. At least, once you have played it for a while, because over time new difficulties keep arising. Starting from the “Settler” level, it goes up to prestige, with ever new challenges.
The game gradually becomes harder by adding a new modifier step by step, which changes the gameplay a bit and requires new methods for victory. The entry is actually quite easy:
- The basic mechanic is “hostility”: The further you push into the world, the stronger it fights back.
- Your residents feel less comfortable as hostility increases. If their approval falls below 0, they will leave the settlement.
- You increase their approval by fulfilling the needs of the different residents – from housing and food to workplace preferences and services like a place to brawl.
- You can lower hostility by stopping woodcutting or sacrificing certain materials.
While playing, drizzly weather, summer, and storm alternate. The storm is the most dangerous time, where there are always some negative effects (“curses”) with certain effects. The higher the hostility, the more curses appear.
In later stages, you have an intertwining set of mechanics that you really need to keep an eye on. I am currently playing at prestige 5, and it can quickly happen that even a well-developed settlement suddenly goes to the dogs:
- At the beginning of a storm, I had exactly one lumberjack too many, putting me at hostility level 7 instead of 6.
- The curse of this level gave all residents a 15% chance of dying – unless they could take advantage of a
service
, basically engage in a hobby. - Service buildings need advanced, processed resources to fully offer their services.
- Since I could produce neither tea nor incense, my residents were unable to visit their bathhouse or the temple.
Within a few moments, almost half of the residents simply died off. The round was thus pretty much over directly, and I could not recover from it.
My “Comfort Game” even though it demands everything from me
So why do I love Against the Storm, even though it punishes me so harshly for a tiny mistake? And why does it help me time and again through tough times?
The game rewards me almost continuously. No matter what I do, even if my settlement goes under, I receive a small reward that may be enough to buy the next upgrade.
That is a wonderful feeling, as game time is never wasted. In early access, I put in 126 hours into the game – and then left it for a while. A few weeks ago, I started playing again and am now at 157 hours.
On Steam, the game has a 93% positive rating, and until July 30, it costs only 19.49 instead of 29.99 euros. The game is even available in the Xbox Game Pass.
Against the Storm offers a new experience every time due to its mechanics. With 5 different peoples and randomly generated maps, each round is a new challenge. Eventually, you figure out what works best and what doesn’t, but there isn’t a “cookie cutter” build.
Against the Storm is officially classified as a survival game, even though the only survival aspect is that your residents must not die and you have to provide them with food. However, both this genre and the survival city-builder
genre are among my absolute favorites. Here you will find the currently best survival games for PC, PS5, and Xbox.
