Stormforge shows survival crafting co-op isn't just for fair weather friends

 Stormforge key art - three heroic looking characters in cartoon cel shaded style stand in front of a fantasy landscape filled with tornadoes.
Stormforge key art - three heroic looking characters in cartoon cel shaded style stand in front of a fantasy landscape filled with tornadoes.

Crafting pretty houses and tackling giant bosses with friends is no longer enough, for a crafting and survival game. The announcement for upcoming Stormforge at today's PC Gaming Show demands we also tangle with unnatural magical disasters like tornadoes, firestorms, and the inevitable firenadoes.

Stormforge has that now-popular cel-shaded art style, easy to follow and pleasing to look at. I especially love the little cartoonish puffs of dust underfoot as characters run and the broad and bright arcs of color behind sword swings.

Showing off some mining and its action-RPG third person combat, Stormforge definitely brings some of the same vibes as genre favorites like Valheim—especially with how comfy the cottage interiors look—but with a world ravaged by constant powerful storms. It takes place across several biomes: forests, mountains, and deserts full of giant bipedal lizard enemies. It looks a bit more magical than your standard survival crafting game too, with water-slinging mage class alongside the usual sword guy and archer girl character choices.

You can have up to eight players working together to deforest the countryside in record time, since you’ll need to gather materials of all kinds to build a home-away-from-home. I’d recommend a nice field stone foundation and some storm shutters in the face of pesky firenado weather, and maybe don’t mention them to your insurance company.

In between gathering and building your dream-cottage, you’ll also need to explore the procedurally generated landscape in search of treasure, equipment upgrades, and boss enemies. You’ll also be able to take some of that storm energy for yourself—or hopefully negate some of the woes you’d normally encounter with each magical storm.

Stormforge is forecasted to arrive sometime in 2025 on PC, and you can wishlist it now on Steam.