The originalFrostpunkwas a breath of fresh air in a genre that can often come across as being too convoluted for its own good. The game steered clear of the superfluous micromanagement found in a lot of traditional city builders and introduced a couple of important aspects that most of its peers have been lacking. Namely, good storytelling and a clear sense of purpose. Titles likeSimCityorCities: Skylinesgive you all the tools you could ever need to build, plan and manage the city of your dreams, but they rarely offer anything resembling an end goal. Frostpunk is different.
Frostpunk combines city builder and survival elements to create an atmospheric game where every choice you make is of vital importance. Not just for your city, but for the survival of humanity as a whole. Set 30 years after the events of the original,Frostpunk 2maintains that same core idea while expanding upon its predecessor in pretty much every way. Between building New London’s infrastructure, managing its colonies and navigating its socio-political landscape, you’ll have your hands full as the Steward of New London. Provided, of course, you manage to remain in power long enough to see the city flourish, or at the very least prevent it from descending into complete anarchy.
Learning the Ropes
Frostpunk 2has just enough hand-holding in the opening hours to make sure you don’t get lost while you wrap your head around its core gameplay mechanics. The story mode, which represents the main bulk of the game, kicks off with a short prologue that doubles as a tutorial section before delving into the campaign proper. The campaign is split into five different chapters, some of which present you with difficult choices that will have long-reaching consequences. Whileeverychoice you make in Frostpunk matters to some extent, there are a few key decisions that will dictate the ultimate fate of New London and its colonies. I don’t want to spoil too much here, but the campaign has multiple endings and you’ll want to think carefully before deciding on a particular path.
Some city builder veterans might scoff at the fact that a game like this has a campaign mode, but it’s worth noting thatFrostpunk 2does feature something resembling a sandbox mode as well known as Utopia Builder. I say ‘resembling’ because the mode in question is also split up into several scenarios and features storytelling elements along with quest-like objectives. Utopia Builder is mainly there to provide more content after you’re done with the campaign, rather than to serve as a true sandbox mode. I personally prefer objective-driven city builders, but I know some people don’t, so I just wanted to give you a little heads-up before we proceed any further.
Post-apocalyptic Politicking
Frostpunk 2is significantly more politically driven than its predecessor, and I mean that in a good way. As the leader of the last city on Earth, you have the unenviable task of ensuring the survival of the last civilized bastion of humanity. That’s a lot of responsibility for a single person to handle and most people in New London will remain skeptical of your leadership skills until you prove to them that you’re up to the challenge. To make matters worse, your citizens are split into several factions, each with its own goals and agendas. Making sure all the factions play nice with each other is often a delicate balancing act that can easily lead to turmoil if you express too much favoritism or completely ignore certain factions for too long.
you may directly appease factions by granting them funds or supporting their agendas, but it’s generally wiser to take the diplomatic approach and settle things in The Council. The Council is where players can propose new laws and where faction representatives can vote on whether they will be enacted. As the city’s Steward, you can influence the outcome of the vote by making certain promises to faction delegates.
Similar to real-world politics, making promises and actually keeping them are two very different things inFrostpunk 2. Sure, going back on your word might upset some people, but who cares when you can bribe them afterward to make them happy again? Alternatively, you can pit factions against each other and convince them to grant you dictatorial powers once the city starts descending into anarchy. After all, desperate times call for desperate measures and the only person who can establish order again is the city’s Supreme Leader…I mean, benevolent Steward.
Review: Frostpunk
Frostpunk is a unique strategy game that offers both an engaging and addicting element.
Moral Conundrums
Frostpunk 2loves to play around with morality as it forces you to make impossibly difficult decisions in the name of the greater good. Bribing politicians and manipulating public opinion is one thing, but you know you’re dealing with real moral conundrums when the game forces you to choose between sending the elderly to die in the frostlands to reduce food consumption or risking mass starvation throughout the entire city. These types of moral dilemmas pop up at regular intervals inFrostpunk 2and are easily one of the best parts of the game.
At one point during Chapter 1, the game warns you that coal deposits are running low and gives you a choice between using explosives to access additional deposits and sending child miners to gather scraps of coal from tunnels that are too narrow for adults to squeeze through. Risking the lives of children is unthinkable, but on the other hand, using explosives inside the mine could irreparably damage your city’s only source of fuel. In a lot of cases,Frostpunk 2gives you a third choice by letting you avoid any immediate risks, but by doing so you often end up causing more harm than good in the long run.
The Burden of Leadership
As if maintaining stability and making difficult choices wasn’t already hard enough,Frostpunk 2also involves a fair amount of city planning. This time around, you’re working with districts instead of individual buildings. Buildings can still be constructed, but only inside specific districts. With resources and real estate being as limited as they are, you’ll need to carefully consider when and where to build each district.
Efficiency is everything in this game as you can’t afford to waste anything, be it Workforce, basic resources like Heatstamps and Prefabs, or special resources like Cores. Things like Shelter, Food, Materials and Goods must be carefully managed as well because things will quickly start to spiral out of control the moment you stop paying attention to your citizens’ needs. This is a lesson I learned the hard way a couple of hours into Chapter 1 when I ran out of Workforce after building and upgrading too many Extraction Districtics. My people had ample supplies of Goods and Materials, but Food and Shelter were lacking, and as it turns out, you can’t build farms and houses if all your able-bodied workers are toiling away in some factory.
Luckily, the game does give you a lot of wiggle room when it comes to managing resources and workers. Every district can be deactivated or made to run at reduced efficiency to preserve resources or divert them to another project. As you pass new laws and research new ideas, you’ll eventually be able to unlock buildings and abilities that improve the efficiency of your districts. A lot of the time, however, there are pros and cons to using them. You could build a Charcoal Regeneration Plant to improve Coal extraction efficiency, but doing so will increase the risk of Disease. Similarly, you can increase productivity in some districts by making people work longer shifts, but this could also lead to injuries and deaths. Even the almighty Generator can be made to run in Overdrive to provide more heat, though all the wear and tear may cause it to break down and possibly kill some people further down the road.
Managing New London by yourself is no easy feat, but the responsibilities of a Steward don’t end there. In addition to taking care of the city, you’re also in charge of exploring the wilderness, establishing colonies, and building trade routes, among other things. There’s a lot going on outside the city and while the exploration aspect isn’t particularly engaging, it does serve a practical purpose as there are certain types of key resources in the wilds that can’t be found in New London. Exploring the seemingly infinite frozen wasteland surrounding the city also provides a fair bit of interesting lore and worldbuilding.
Closing Comments:
Frostpunk 2is pretty much everything you could want from a sequel. The game expands upon the foundation laid down by the original while introducing fresh systems and mechanics. There’s nothing particularly innovative to look forward to here, but that’s to be expected and isn’t necessarily a bad thing. When you have a game as polished as Frostpunk, the last thing you want is to try to reinvent the wheel and potentially ruin it in the process. Sometimes all players want from a sequel is the same type of gameplay they already love coupled with updated visuals and some new features to keep things fresh. If that’s what you’re looking for too, you won’t be disappointed by whatFrostpunk 2has to offer.
Frostpunk 2
Version Reviewed: PC
Frostpunk 2 takes place 30 years after the apocalyptic blizzard that has taken place in the original. Earth is still overwhelmed by the neverending frost and harsh, icy climate. You play as the leader of a resource-hungry metropolis where expansion and internal conflicts are an unavoidable reality. It’s up to you to make decisions about your City’s future and face their consequences
Review: Satisfactory
In a game with the scope and polish of Satisfactory one hundred hours can be just the beginning of building the industrial powerhouse of your dreams.
