The Summer Sale is currently live on Steam with many offers. Included: Against the Storm, a city-building game where you must constantly build cities with new challenges. The game is “overwhelmingly positive” and is considered an absolute hidden gem.
This is the hidden gem:
- In Against the Storm, you must build cities, similar to Anno, but with a special twist: After some time, a storm sweeps over the map and destroys everything.
- The game is a so-called roguelite, where you work your way across a map, continuously building new settlements with different difficulties. The goal is to withstand the storm as long as possible and keep the queen satisfied.
- Against the Storm combines many different mechanics that you learn over time. On Steam, it has a rating of 95% based on around 28,000 reviews and is thus “overwhelmingly positive.” Players agree: Against the Storm is as good as everyone says.
This is the offer on Steam: From June 26 to July 10, the Steam Summer Sale is taking place on the platform. Against the Storm is 50% off during this period and currently costs around 15 Euros.
Since the end of 2024, there is also a DLC that brings frogs as a new race into the game. This one is also currently discounted:
- to Against the Storm on Steam for 14.99 instead of 29.99 Euros
- for the DLC Keepers of the Stone on Steam for 9.74 instead of 14.99 Euros
- If you want everything, there is a bundle including cosmetic content on Steam with additional discounts
In April, the developers announced that Against the Storm will receive another DLC. This will bring bats with corresponding, Gothic-style buildings into the game. A release date is still pending.
Build Cities Against the Clock and the Storm – Over and Over Again
What makes Against the Storm unique is the fundamental gameplay principle. You don’t build a city for hours or days and optimize supply routes while watching your citizens work, but you must constantly face new challenges.
A round lasts about an hour or less, depending on the difficulty level, and starts you with different conditions:
- The different biomes have advantages and disadvantages that you must exploit for victory
- There are different races with preferences and needs that must be met
- the available buildings are different each time, meaning you can’t always win with “the one build”
The higher the difficulty and the further you move from the center of the map, the more environmental dangers lurk. A round always cycles between drizzle (“Spring”), summer, and storm, and each time the storm becomes more dangerous the longer you take.
Learning the mechanics can take a while, but you unlock the difficulties and new challenges piece by piece anyway. This way, you can easily spend 160 hours or more in the game and still play each round differently.
Against the Storm is a game you could play for a whole day, but it is also excellent if you only have time for one round. Since each run is limited, you can expect to finish in a maximum of 45 minutes to an hour: I spent 50 hours in 4 days on a game on Steam – No city-building game has captivated me like this in 30 years
