One of the best city builders in recent memory, Against the Storm has continued to build on its successful early access run, which lead up to its 1.0 Steam launch in December 2023. Boasting an ‘overwhelmingly positive’ 95% Steam review score from over 21,000 reviews and a firm favorite of the PCGamesN staff, Against the Storm is a beautiful roguelike strategy game that’s perfect if you fancy a break from the more traditional locales of Cities Skylines 2 and Manor Lords for something more fantastical.
Our Against the Steam review hailed the “near-perfect roguelike city builder” for “being both simple enough on the surface to draw you in and complex enough to keep you enthralled in its gratifying risk/reward gameplay loop.” The strategy game is about to get another round of updates very soon, as developer Eremite Games prepares to launch Against the Storm update 1.3, bringing another helping of upgrades to the table.
Patch 1.3 is the third major step on the post-release Against the Storm roadmap, with the game’s first DLC set to follow at some point in the future and bringing a new playable species along with more biomes, buildings, events, and more. For the time being, however, this free update has lots of reasons to jump in, including a gorgeous new creature to encounter, additional perks and balance tweaks, and a handful of very welcome user interface upgrades.
The River Kelpie can be encountered in dangerous glades as you explore the areas around your cities. This shape-shifting aquatic spirit is certainly a sight to behold and, if you’re able to withstand its mesmerizing appearance, the game’s description teases that “It is said that whoever acquires the Kelpie’s bridle will be able to control it.”
The new perks are themed around “a more corruption and blight-heavy playstyle,” encouraging you to take a more risky approach to proceedings and deal with the consequences of Blightrot and Hearth corruption. Eremite Games says it’s also “looking closely at the balance of various game elements,” with embarkation bonuses, upgrades to the Blight Post, and cornerstones (positive bonuses earned as you play) all in its sights.
Among all the interface upgrades, you can expect a new precision tree-marking tool, improved visibility for highlighted trees, an ancient seal overlay on the world map, a setting to enable house entrance arrows to assist your town layout, and much more besides. “Let’s leave some tiny surprises, shall we,” Eremite Games teases.
It’s also worth noting that due to the “numerous systemic changes” in update 1.3, any ongoing settlements you have in your playthrough will be closed with the update. If you don’t get the chance to wrap up your current city before launch, you’ll get extra citadel resources and royal resupply in compensation, or – if you’re playing through Steam – you can switch to a version 1.2 beta branch for the first week after the update launches to finish it off.
Against the Storm update 1.3 launches Tuesday April 23. Ahead of that, Against the Storm is currently on sale on Steam at a 35% discount through Saturday April 27. That means you’ll pay just $19.49/£16.24 if you decide to jump in now, down from its usual price of $29.99/£24.99. Even better, if you’re a subscriber to PC Game Pass you can play Against the Storm through Microsoft’s game library at no additional cost.
If that’s not enough to keep you busy, we’ve got more of the best city-building games on PC, along with all the best roguelike games to play in 2024 for all the run-based fiends out there (it’s me, I’m the run-based fiend).
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