‘There’s something we’ve been dying to tell you’: The best city builder of 2023 is getting a survival game set in the same world

Ever play a game set in a world so intriguing and enjoyable you wish there were other games, even of a different genre, that took place in the same setting?

Eremite Games, the studio that created roguelike city builder Against the Storm, has announced just that. “There’s something we’ve been dying to tell you,” the studio said on Steam: it’s been working on a new game that is “slowly taking shape as a survival game set in the Against the Storm universe.”

Even better, it looks like it might be co-op. As part of a dev diary, the studio released a short in-engine clip of the new game, though asked that fans “please keep your expectations very modest. The project is still in its earliest phase, full of placeholders, and nearly everything you see is subject (and likely) to change.”

There’s not a lot to see in the clip: a robed figure carrying a rifle strides through a gloomy, rainy night, and stops outside a small dwelling that looks for all the world like a building you’d see in Against the Storm. A moment later, a second figure steps into frame, which could suggest a co-op experience. See for yourself:

That’s it. There’s nothing else to see at the moment, and no further details about the new game including when it might come out or even what it’s called.

“There’s a chance we’re showing this way too early,” the studio said. “We hope you won’t hold it against us if the project evolves into something very different. But keeping this under wraps has been torture. We’re still just a small, 6-person indie team, and this kind of openness feels more natural to us.”

Against the Storm was an unusual, contrarian sort of city builder: instead of building a city that lasts the whole game, the city you build gets wiped out every year thanks to a cataclysmic cycle of destructive magic—the storm of the title. But each time you begin again, you bring with you the experience and upgrades of your previous runs. It was our favorite city builder of 2023, and our reviewer Leana Hafer called it “one of the most clever, engaging, and endearing strategy games I’ve played in years.”

Speaking of which, Eremite Games also addressed a topic I’m sure it gets asked about a lot: Against the Storm 2?

“The idea of a sequel is something we think about often,” the studio said. “But this time, we wanted to experiment with the survival genre and explore new facets of the Against the Storm universe.”