Greetings!
We’re launching a new series of Dev Diaries to share what we’ve been working on recently, highlight bits of trivia, and collect all the news from the Against the Storm universe.
Staying connected with you has always been incredibly important to us, and we want to keep that going, even in times when we have no grand announcements to share.
We hope you enjoy it as much as we do. Let’s begin!
The Steam Summer Sale is in full swing, and Against the Storm is discounted as well. Let your friends and family know, or complete your collection while the sale lasts:
We’re happy to share the first previews of features coming in the next update. Titled “Over-haulers” Update 1.10, it introduces an overhaul of the haulers system (cough cough, see what we did there?).
The update will be released on July 8th at around 1:00 pm UTC. We initially announced a June release, but minor changes to our plans required us to postpone it. We apologize for that.
As for the titular change, a new “Haulers” tab will appear in the Warehouse panel:
Here, you can choose whether haulers move ingredients, products, or both. When both options are enabled, haulers focus on products first. Higher priority buildings are serviced earlier, while buildings with the same priority are treated equally.
When collecting goods, haulers prioritize larger stacks instead of following a left-to-right order. They don’t haul from ponds, service buildings, or glade events.
You can also set default hauler priorities in the Options menu, in the Gameplay tab.
The update will also introduce three new World Map modifiers, but we’ll leave those as a surprise for now.
We’ve also been working on a number of UX improvements. One of them is a rework of the Fishing Hut panel. Although it looked similar to gathering camp panels, it behaved very differently, which sometimes caused confusion.
To make things clearer, we’re adding a “Nearby Ponds” section to the Fishing Hut panel. This highlights that resources are gathered in nets at the pond, rather than at the Fishing Hut itself. Ponds in this section display a circular progress bar showing remaining charges. Clicking a pond icon in this section will open the pond panel.
We hope that with this change, we’ll not only make it more usable, but also less confusing. The update includes many other improvements and adjustments, though overall, we consider it a relatively small one. Which brings us to another topic.
We’ve been a little worried, as some of you were expecting a 2.0 update after Update 1.9. That’s not how we number versions, though. For us, a 2.0 implies a major, game‑changing transition in terms of core systems, available content, audiovisual fidelity, or our overall approach to updating the game. We’re not planning anything on that scale anymore.
When we moved from Early Access to 1.0 in 2023, it signaled that the experimentation phase was over and the core systems were locked. The game’s identity would remain stable, and we would continue building on top of it.
If anything, we’ll continue this approach. However…
“Oh wait, you’re serious…” “Yeah, I think it’s time.” “What if we pivot again?” “They deserve to know.” “Alright, let’s show them.”
We’re working on a new game! Some of you may have seen this coming. In December last year, we confirmed that we were slowly winding down development of Against the Storm:
Although, two years after the 1.0 release, development of Against the Storm may be nearing its end, we’re certainly not done with this universe. It’s hands-down the most fun and creative project of our careers, and we don’t want to ever part ways with it.
While you can expect some occasional small updates for Against the Storm (including the upcoming “Over-haulers” Update 1.10), most of our time now goes into experimenting with the new game. And we want to start showing you how it’s going. But first, a small warning. For many months, 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 a saying circling in the gamedev industry: “Just make it exist first. You can make it good later”
For quite a while, you’ll be looking at something more akin to the first picture. Here’s a very brief in-engine recording of what’s slowly taking shape as a survival game set in the Against the Storm universe.
Oh, what novelty to see the sky in this world!
There’s a chance we’re showing this way too early. 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.
What about Against the Storm 2? The idea of a sequel is something we think about often. But this time, we wanted to experiment with the survival genre and explore new facets of the Against the Storm universe.
That’s all we’re ready to share in this Dev Diary. Stay tuned for the next one!
We're not putting up a Steam page for the survival game yet. It’s way too early for that (and we haven't come up with a name yet!).
If you're telling your friends, viewers, or readers about the project, please share our Steam developer page: https://store.steampowered.com/developer/eremitegames
You can follow us there to get news and notifications about our upcoming releases.
Last but not least, let’s celebrate your creations.
Here are some screenshots and art that caught our attention recently:
If you have any Steam Points at your disposal, throw them at those amazing works.
Until next time, and may the storm be gentle on you,
Eremite Games