You know, I can really get down with a decent open-world survival game when I have the spare time. There’s just something about starting from nothing and then putting in the blood, sweat, and tears necessary to actually get somewhere worthwhile that’s easy to invest myself in—especially when it has plenty of other stuff going on to make the experience even meatier. But what I love even more is when a game manages to look and feel like one of my favorite games of all time, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, all while inserting itself alongside survival vets like Valheim. Well, that’s precisely what Stormforge is, and after recently spending a couple of hours with its demo ahead of its November 10, 2026 Steam Early Access release, it’s safe to say I’m hooked, and I can’t wait for more.
If you’ve played just about any survival game before, you should immediately know what you’re getting into with Stormforge. It has all the fundamental elements of a great survival game, including resource gathering, crafting, exploration, and combat. However, I wouldn’t call it basic at all, as there is plenty going on in this open-world survival game that separates it from the rest. For one thing, the world of Stormforge has been devastated by magical storms that corrupt the land, some of which can actually be entered and cleared by fighting through the enemies and hazards inside them—which quickly became one of my favorite things to do in the demo. Add a class-based progression system, some surprisingly satisfying combat, and a world I constantly found myself wandering off to explore, and Stormforge wound up being one of the more interesting Steam survival game demos I’ve played in quite some time.
Stormforge’s Demo Gave Me Plenty of Reasons to Wander Off
Check Out Stormforge’s Demo on Steam
The basic premise behind Stormforge is that magical storms have torn the world apart, leaving behind a bunch of islands and ruined lands that players are expected to survive in while slowly pushing back against the corruption. Of course, that means gathering wood, stone, food, and other materials, crafting weapons and equipment, building a place to live, and gradually improving your character enough to take on whatever the world throws at you next. The demo currently includes the Meadows and Forest biomes, along with three playable classes, building, ruins, dungeons, storms to clear, and a first boss that I eventually worked my way toward after spending quite a bit of time doing almost everything except going where I was supposed to go. There’s also support for co-op, but I played through the demo by myself, as I personally prefer to do in these games.
As far as classes go, I picked the Mage, because I’m a spellcaster at heart and I almost always go that route when a game gives me the option. I don’t have anything against melee combat, but if I can stand back and throw magic at something instead, I’m probably going to do that. Admittedly, combat took me a little while to get used to, because Stormforge doesn’t really let you get away with mindlessly attacking everything until it dies. Stamina matters, dodging matters, and enemies telegraph their attacks well enough that I eventually learned when I needed to get out of the way rather than stubbornly trying to squeeze in one more spell. Once everything started clicking, though, I found the combat really satisfying, especially because I could tell I was getting better at it at the same time my Mage was getting stronger.
And that’s probably one of the things I enjoyed most about Stormforge overall. I like progression systems where I can actually feel the difference between the character I started with and the one I’m playing a couple of hours later, and Stormforge did a good job of giving me that feeling. By the time I made it to the first boss, I had better equipment, more options, and a much better understanding of how I wanted to play my Mage, and encounters that would have made me much more cautious earlier in the demo weren’t bothering me nearly as much anymore. Obviously, some of that was just me learning the combat, but there was also a very clear sense that I had put in the work to become more powerful, which made gathering resources and chasing upgrades feel worthwhile instead of like busywork.
Exploration had a lot to do with that too, because I rarely felt like I had gone somewhere for no reason. Stormforge uses a procedurally generated world, and I’ll admit that usually makes me a little skeptical because procedurally generated doesn’t automatically mean interesting. A game can generate all the land it wants, but if there’s nothing worth finding on it, then all it’s really doing is making me walk farther. Thankfully, I didn’t have that problem here. I kept seeing ruins in the distance, paths that seemed like they might lead somewhere, resources I needed, or some other little distraction that pulled me away from whatever I was technically supposed to be doing, and more often than not, following those distractions paid off in some way. Even when I wasn’t finding some amazing piece of gear, I was usually coming back with materials I could use for crafting, building, or making myself stronger, which was enough to keep me poking around.
I like progression systems where I can actually feel the difference between the character I started with and the one I’m playing a couple of hours later, and Stormforge did a good job of giving me that feeling.
I also really like Stormforge‘s enemy design, especially where its bosses are concerned. Survival games can sometimes lean a little too heavily on enemies that feel like they’re only there because the player needs something to fight, but the creatures here have much more personality than I was expecting. The first boss especially gave me a pretty good idea of the direction Roboto Games seems to be going with them, and I’m into it. The designs are colorful and strange without clashing with the rest of the world, and after fighting the first boss, I found myself just as curious about what some of the later ones will look like as I was about how difficult they’ll actually be.
Clearing Stormforge’s Storms Might Be My Favorite Part of the Demo
Of everything I did in Stormforge, though, I think clearing the smaller storms is what I enjoyed the most. Again, these aren’t just weather events that force you to run inside and wait until the game decides you can go back out. They corrupt portions of the world, filling those areas with enemies and environmental dangers, and if you want to get rid of them, you actually have to walk right into the middle of the mess and deal with whatever is keeping the storm going. I realize that might not sound all that different from clearing an enemy camp or some other typical open-world activity, but it’s definitely a little more dramatic than that.
Guess the games from the emojis.
Guess the games from the emojis.
Easy (120s)Medium (90s)Hard (60s)
I especially liked how the environment changed once I was inside one. Visibility drops, the weather gets nastier, enemies start getting in the way, and the closer I got to the source, the more it felt like I had wandered into a little self-contained adventure rather than another piece of side content. Then, once I finally cleared the storm, there was something really satisfying about watching the danger disappear and knowing I had actually changed that part of the world.
The storms also play into traversal, which is another area where the Breath of the Wild comparison becomes pretty obvious. Stormforge has a glider, and wind can affect how you move around with it, while tornadoes and debris can make being outside during a storm considerably more dangerous. I haven’t seen enough of the system yet to know how deep all of that eventually goes, but I like that the weather is something I actually interact with rather than just a visual effect happening around me. It makes the world feel a little less predictable, and in a survival game where so much of my time is going to be spent running back and forth between places I’ve already been, anything that keeps traversal from becoming background noise is a win in my book.
Of everything I did in Stormforge, though, I think clearing the smaller storms is what I enjoyed the most.
More than anything, though, Stormforge has already found the kind of gameplay loop that tends to get me in trouble with games like this. I go out because I need one resource, find something else worth exploring, come back with enough materials to improve my gear, realize I’m now strong enough to deal with something I avoided earlier, and before I know it, another hour has disappeared. And as someone who chose a Mage, I especially like that each little step in the progression makes me feel increasingly powerful rather than simply increasing a few numbers behind the scenes.
So yes, Stormforge looks a lot like Breath of the Wild, and there is no mistaking the Valheim DNA in the way it handles survival, crafting, building, and exploration. But after playing through the demo until its first boss, I don’t think either comparison tells the whole story. The storms are interesting enough to give it something of its own, the combat became genuinely satisfying once I understood how everything worked, the exploration kept rewarding my curiosity, and the progression already has me wondering how powerful my Mage can eventually become. I went into the demo expecting another survival game I’d probably enjoy for a couple of hours, and instead I walked away wanting to see what happens when Stormforge finally opens the rest of its world up.
- Developer(s)
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Roboto Games
- Publisher(s)
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Roboto Games
