Against the Storm Beginner’s Guide 2026: Species, Blueprints and the Blightrot Cycle

Against the Storm is a roguelite city-builder where every run — called a settlement — starts fresh on a randomly generated map. You lead one of several species (humans, beavers, lizards, foxes, harpies, and frogs) as the Queen’s Viceroy, sent to reclaim the wilderness from the Blightstorm. Each run lasts anywhere from 30 minutes to three hours, and when you win (or lose), you return to the Smoldering City to unlock upgrades that make the next run easier.

The core loop is: pick three clans to work with, choose your first three buildings from a random draft of blueprints, gather resources, keep your settlers alive through the storm season, and seal enough Ancient Glades to complete the Queen’s orders. Lose too many settlers, run out of time, or let Blightrot overrun your settlement and the run ends.

If you want a deeper breakdown of your very first decisions, see our Blueprint Optimization guide — it covers the selection framework that experienced players use to evaluate every new draft.

The 5 Species and How They Shape Your Run

Your starting caravan always includes exactly three species. Each has different food preferences, service needs, and specialisations:

Humans — the generalists. They eat simple food (berries, grain) and work any job adequately. Great as a safe pick when you don’t know the biome.
Beavers — wood-processing masters. They eat roots and need at least one wood-related industry to shine. Pick them when your biome has abundant trees.
Lizards — meat-eaters who thrive on rain engines. They work fast in rainpunk-boosted buildings and are the best pick for aggressive, short-duration strategies.
Foxes — resolve specialists with a hostility penalty. They need less housing space but get unhappy fast if anyone leaves. Good for small, elite settlements.
Harpies — the high-maintenance power pick. They demand complex food and multiple services, but they produce the best global bonuses when happy.

Each species also belongs to a clan, and the three clans you pick determine which unique buildings and cornerstones are available. For the full breakdown of every clan’s mechanics, preferred biomes, and hidden synergies, read our Against the Storm Clans Guide.

Building Selection: The Difference Between Winning and Wasting Slots

Every blueprint draft is a decision that locks in part of your economy. You only get six to nine building slots per run, so every pick matters. The most common beginner mistake is taking a building that looks good in isolation but doesn’t fit your species’ needs or the biome’s resource nodes.

The rule of thumb: always pick a building that solves an immediate problem (food shortage > complex food production > service building) before a building that gives a long-term bonus. The first three blueprint picks shape the entire run — if you waste them on buildings you never staff, you’ll struggle through mid-game.

Our full Best Buildings Tier List breaks down every major blueprint into S through D tiers, with specific guidance on which buildings are traps (they look good but eat resources without payoff) and which ones appear in virtually every winning run.

The Blightrot System: What It Is and Why It Wipes Beginners

Blightrot is the corruption mechanic that punishes aggressive production. Every time you use rainpunk engines or solve certain glade events, you generate Blightrot cysts. If you don’t burn them before the storm season, they spread and kill settlers.

Most new players see their first Blightrot cyst appear, ignore it because it seems small, and then face a cascading corruption event during the storm that wipes half their population. The fix is simple: build a Blight Post as soon as you install your first rain engine, and clear every new cyst before the storm timer expires.

For the exact cyst-to-burner ratio, the full clearing rotation, and how it changes at higher Prestige levels, read our dedicated Blightrot Management Guide.

Rainpunk: The Free Power System You Can’t Ignore

Rainpunk is Against the Storm’s name for the water-powered engine system. By collecting rainwater (drizzle water, clearance water, or storm water) and feeding it into buildings with rain engines, you boost production at the cost of generating Blightrot. It’s effectively a risk-reward lever: more rainpunk = faster output = more Blightrot to manage.

The three water types are tied to the three seasons — drizzle (green), clearance (blue), and storm (purple) — and each powers different buildings more efficiently. A complete water collection chain (geyser pump -> collector -> storage -> rain engine) costs significant wood and parts to build, but the payoff is a settlement that produces goods 50–100% faster.

See the full Rainpunk Water System Guide for a step-by-step setup, the best buildings to pipe water to first, and the geyser placement tactics that separate average from excellent runs.

Blueprint Optimisation: The First Three Picks Framework

Your first three blueprint picks are the highest-stakes decisions in any run. Here is the framework experienced players use:

Identify your species before evaluating any blueprint. A Workshop is useless if you have harpies and foxes who can’t staff it well.
Scan your biome — what resources are abundant? Pick buildings that process what you have, not what you wish you had.
Pick for immediate need first — if you can’t feed your settlers, don’t pick a luxury goods building.
Delay if unsure — you can skip a blueprint draft and get a slightly better offer later (though you lose the current options).

Our Blueprint Optimization Guide has a full priority table showing exactly which buildings to take and which to skip for each species combination, plus timing tactics that top players use.

Steam Deck and Performance Tips

Against the Storm runs on Unity and is officially Steam Deck Verified, but the default settings favour visual quality over consistent framerates. The biggest performance issues come from the UI’s rendering layer — enabling the “Low Power Mode” in the in-game settings and capping the resolution to 1152×720 gives the most stable experience.

One setting you must disable: VSync. It causes persistent frame-pacing stutters on Deck. Set it to “Off” and use the Deck’s built-in 40 Hz / 40 FPS cap instead for the best battery-to-smoothness ratio.

For the full recommended settings, FSR configuration, and a power consumption breakdown, read our Against the Storm Steam Deck Guide.

10 Essential Mods That Fix the HUD and Add Real Content

The base game’s UI has a few gaps that mods close neatly: there’s no visible trader timer in the HUD, building stats are buried in tooltips, and you can’t move buildings once placed. The modding community has filled every one of these gaps.

Our top recommendation is Move It — it lets you relocate any building without demolishing it, which saves huge amounts of early-game resources. HUD Fixes and Cornerstone Info Overhaul are must-haves for anyone who wants clear information without hovering over every icon.

If you want a curated list that covers UI mods, quality-of-life mods, content mods, and balance-safe picks, see our full Against the Storm Mods Guide.

Beginner’s Roadmap: Your First 5 Runs

If you’re brand new and don’t know where to start, here is a simple roadmap for your first five runs:

Run 1 — Play through the tutorial properly. Don’t skip tooltips. The tutorial settlement is designed to teach the basics with low risk.
Run 2 — Pick the Royal Woodlands biome (easiest) with Humans + Lizards + Beavers. Focus on getting a reliable food chain before year 2.
Run 3 — Try a different species combination (Harpies + Foxes + Frogs) in the Scarlet Orchard. Learn how different food chains change your build order.
Run 4 — Introduce rainpunk. Build one rain engine on your main production building and learn to manage the resulting Blightrot. Refer to the Rainpunk guide for the water collection chain.
Run 5 — Increase the difficulty to Veteran. This is where the “pick the right building for your species” rule becomes critical — the Blightrot and hostility scaling punish mistakes more aggressively.

After these five runs, you should have the fundamentals to tackle any biome at Veteran difficulty and start working toward the higher Prestige levels.

FAQ

Is Against the Storm a roguelike or a city-builder?

Both. Each settlement is a standalone city-builder run with randomised elements (blueprints, glade events, cornerstones), and the meta-progression between runs (upgrading the Smoldering City) is the roguelike layer. The game calls itself a “roguelite city-builder,” and that’s an accurate description.

How long does a typical run take?

30 minutes to 3 hours, depending on difficulty and biome. Early tutorial runs are shorter; high-Prestige levels can take 2+ hours. There is no real-time pressure — you can pause and save at any time.

Does the game have controller support?

Native controller support is limited, but the game is fully playable on Steam Deck with the default control scheme. Check the Steam Deck guide for the best control layout settings.

What are the system requirements?

Minimum: Intel i5-7300U / AMD Ryzen 3 2200G, 8 GB RAM, GPU with 2 GB VRAM (GTX 960 or RX 560). Recommended: i7-9700K / Ryzen 5 3600, 16 GB RAM, GTX 1080 or RX 5700. It’s CPU-bound in late-game when many settlers and production chains are active, so a strong single-core CPU helps more than a high-end GPU.

Is there multiplayer or co-op?

No. Against the Storm is strictly single-player. The developers have stated they have no plans for multiplayer features.

What DLC is available?

Three DLC packs are currently available on Steam: the Frogs DLC (adds the frog species and two new biomes), the Keepers of the Stone DLC (adds foxes, the Seal mechanic, and new buildings), and the Sealed Swamp mini-DLC. All are worth getting if you enjoy the base game — they add meaningful strategic variety without diluting the core loop.

Sources

Michael

I have 30 years of gaming experience, beginning with such awesome titles as Diablo, Command & Conquer, and Settlers. Over the years, I've gained a thorough understanding of strategic and action games, including gaming mechanics, competitive techniques, and market trends.Gaming is more than simply a hobby for me. It is a lifelong pursuit of discovery, learning, and mastery. Strategy games helped me evolve and become who I am right now. Whether I'm optimizing tactics, evaluating game mechanics, or deconstructing meta plans, I attack each issue with the accuracy of a seasoned player.With a diverse background in classic and modern gaming, I surely am a reliable source for information on game mechanics, optimization tactics, and player progression. My passion for high-level play and in-depth game analysis ensures that my knowledge is going to help you win!