Greetings, Viceroys!

In this last Early Access update, we bring you the Queen’s Hand Trials – an ironman mode in which you have one Cycle to reforge the Adamantine Seal. We’re also introducing various smaller balance changes and fixes.

Check out the full changelog below.

FULL RELEASE

Against the Storm 1.0 is out now! You can get it with a 35% launch discount:

Here’s a new trailer to celebrate the occasion:

DEVELOPER NOTES

It’s finally here! The 1.0 version of Against the Storm has arrived! Words really can’t describe how happy and excited we are. The past year has been a hell of a ride and thanks to you, the Community, the game has grown and developed into something we can all be really proud of. Without you, Against the Storm wouldn’t be half as good as it is today. We hope you have enjoyed this wild ride with us, and that you are as excited about the future as we are. For now, let’s just say this probably isn’t the last content update for Against the Storm.

But before we start celebrating, let’s take a quick look at what today’s 1.0 update brings to the table. As the name suggests, it’s all about one big feature: the Queen’s Hand Trial, a hardcore permadeath mode reserved for the most skilled Viceroys.

In the Queen’s Hand Trial, your goal is to reforge the Adamantine Seal in one cycle without losing any settlements. A failed or abandoned settlement means the trial is over and you must start again. Restarting a cycle or not having enough Seal Fragments also means you have to start over.

You start at level 18 with no Citadel Upgrades and only a few fundamental gameplay unlocks (such as Trade Routes and Rainpunk). As you progress through the new game mode, you’ll be able to gradually purchase new upgrades in the Smoldering City, but you’ll never be able to have everything – that’s because the upgrades are no longer displayed in a tree, but are drawn pseudo-randomly (like buildings or cornerstones). In total, you get 25 picks, each with 3 upgrades to choose from, and you can only buy one at a time. There’s also a section called “Fundamental Upgrades”, where the upgrades are not random (as they are crucial power boosts, mostly tied to higher numbers of Cornerstone/Blueprint options).

To begin the Queen’s Hand Trial, you will need to create a new profile in the Queen’s Hand tab of the Profiles window in the main menu. This new tab will only appear once you reforge the Adamantine Seal for the first time. The Queen’s Hand Trial is meant to be a final, hardcore, and truly rogue-like challenge, and if you succeed, you will be able to claim the reward for the “Queen’s Hand Trial” Deed on your main profile (the last piece of the Viceroy’s uniform in your home – the Queen’s Hand Pauldron).

We can’t wait to see how you fare against the merciless odds in this new game mode. And if you just want to see others fail (or win!) at this new challenge, we have some good news – over the past few days, there has already been plenty of viewing material online as several content creators have competed in the Queen’s Hand Trials competition:

As always, this update also brings some bug fixes and a lot of localization improvements for all languages (the list of changed lines is in the hundreds, so we spared you the details in the changelog).

Finally, let’s talk a little more about the future of Against the Storm. As you probably already know, we will no longer be doing biweekly updates, but we will continue to support the game and release new content in the future. The 1.0 launch is a good time to slow things down and let players (old and new) enjoy the full Against the Storm experience without drastic changes every two weeks. It is also a good time for the team to take a short break, evaluate the game from afar, gather feedback, and plan our next move.

We will be sharing more about our post-launch plans in the future, but it will most likely be in a looser, more free-flowing form (without an exact roadmap). For now, stay tuned and enjoy the 1.0 release of Against the Storm!

May the storm be gentle on you,
Eremite Games

CHANGELOG

Changes marked with ⚡ were inspired by community.

New content and features

• Added the Queen’s Hand Trials to the game – a hardcore, permadeath mode available after reforging the Adamantine Seal.
  • In the Queen’s Hand Trial, your goal is to reforge the Adamantine Seal in one cycle without losing any settlements. A failed or abandoned settlement means the trial is over and you must start again. Restarting a cycle or not having enough Seal Fragments also means you have to start over.
  • You will start at level 18 with no Citadel Upgrades. Some gameplay unlocks (such as Trade Routes and Rainpunk) are available from the start.
  • As you progress through the new game mode, you will be able to gradually purchase upgrades in the Smoldering City. However, there is a catch – upgrades are no longer distributed on an upgrade tree but are instead drawn (like buildings or cornerstones).
  • You will only be able to purchase a portion of all the upgrades in the Citadel. You will get a total of 25 picks, each with 3 upgrades to choose from, and you can only buy one at a time.
  • There is also a section called “Fundamental Upgrades”. The upgrades there aren’t random and are mostly tied to increasing the number of Cornerstone/Blueprint options.
  • Deeds, Daily Expeditions, and Training Expeditions are not available in Queen’s Hand Trial. All Deed rewards (the Big Shelter, decorations, Dullahan) are available from the start.
  • To unlock the Queen’s Hand Trial, you must first reforge the Adamantine Seal at least once. Once you claim the reward for the Deed associated with this Seal, you will be granted access to the new game mode.
  • To start the Queen’s Hand Trial, you will need to create a new profile in the “Queen’s Hand” tab of the “Profiles” window in the main menu.
  • Each Queen’s Hand profile has a failure counter. Each valid failed attempt (with at least 3 successful settlements before losing) increases the counter and gives a tiny amount of Citadel Resources at the start of the next attempt.
  • Winning the trial will complete the “Queen’s Hand Trial” Deed and award you with the last piece of the Viceroy’s Uniform in your home – the Queen’s Hand Pauldron.
• Added new conversations with Aunt Lori specific to the Queen’s Hand Trial.

Other

• Updated the demo version of the game on all platforms.
• Changed the default recommended control layout for the Steam Deck version of Against the Storm from “mouse and keyboard” to “controller”.
• The Steam Deck version will now read gamepad input by default and display controller glyphs.
• Please note that this is by no means full controller support. This is just the first step in making the game more accessible on the Steam Deck.
• In the future, we will expand on this functionality and try to make the Steam Deck experience smoother.
• If you prefer the old controls, we recommend playing with the “Keyboard and Mouse (Legacy)” layout (it can be found in the recommended/official layouts for ATS).

The current game version is 1.0.1.

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