The popular city-survival game returns for a sequel, set thirty years after an apocalyptic blizzard ravaged Earth. In Frostpunk 2, you face not only the perils of never-ending winter, but also the powerful factions that watch your every step inside the Council Hall.
Developed by: 11 Bit Studios
Played on: Steam
Length: 11 hours (33 hours for completionists)
Game Introduction
Frostpunk 2 was released recently on 20th September 2024, the sequel to the original Frostpunk that was released on 18th April 2018 by the developer 11-bit Studios, a depressing resource management game where the ice age has come to 19th century Europe with survival being the main goal of the people with you, the steward of new London, at the helm of it. The core of its gameplay is maintaining society in the harsh winter as you gather goods, materials, and coal to keep the steam engine burning and provide warmth for your society.
The story of Frostpunk 2 is a follow up to the first game and is set 30 years after the great white out of New London, in which the captain that has kept New London safe has passed away. The people have chosen you the player as the steward, leaving you to navigate through the great ice storm and keep society safe from the cold.
As you progress the story, the people will either support you or go against you based on your decisions in the game, which laws you prioritize, which resources you go for, and which factions you support. The game also features a utopia mode which is the sandbox version where the player has to manage the colony and find out how far they can go.
Very much like the first game, decisions on what to prioritize and what to delay plays a crucial role in the game and you won’t have all the resources to do what you need. You might need to prioritize coal mining and housing to prevent your society from freezing to death, while delaying food production or research as you maintain and juggle resources for your people. What differentiates this game from the first are the factions and the council that serve to keep you in check.
Similar to the original, exploration is also part of Frostpunk 2, but this time, settlements can be built and managed, and resources have to be extended from the main base to these smaller settlements. These settlements are vital as the resources around the main base are limited, and without more resources, you will not be able to expand the base and meet the needs of the people. Exploration is one also one of the ways to find resources like coal mines and hunting grounds that can extend your resources until it runs out.
What I Liked
It is not without exaggeration that I love everything about this game, just like the first game, as players not only deal with resource management like other games of the same genre, but also the people’s needs and voice.
The faction system is nice addition where you are being pulled left and right trying to fulfill their demands, without turning the city into an anarchy state. The player can fulfill their demands by either passing laws that favors them, or research upgrades and technologies that they suggest. Each faction also provides different research branches, thus you can choose and pick which research suits the current situation.
If you loved the first game, you will love Frostpunk 2, since they kept everything that was good about the first game and expanded on it. The resource harvesting and management systems have been vastly improved where there are no more raw foods that need to be turned into food rations, and materials are now a single resource instead of steel and wood.
Construction has also changed to building districts instead of individual buildings, with upgrades to implement each district like the research center, hospital, and other convenient buildings. These changes have made resources in the game easier to manage, while other factors like the factions and exploration make the game interesting.
There is also a difficulty setting that you can choose from the get-go unlike the previous game, where the default difficulty setting is Medium and you have to navigate yourself through the Select Scenario. The highest difficulty is Harsh, with very limited resources, frequent decreases in temperature, and an abundance of sickness if you manage your city wrongly.
It brings a fresh challenge to the game as the previous game got easier and easier as you progressed and gained more resources. Even in the easiest setting where you get plenty of starting resources, the game is cold and harsh as your funds dwindle trying to fulfill the demands of society.
The graphics of the game have improved tremendously as you can zoom in on each district to see your people go about warming themselves up at the nearest heat source. Each district is also slightly randomly generated to look alive as you set the district block by block, covering all resources you are able to.
These little things make New London come alive as you watch its people struggling against the cold, lack of food, and other resources. The exploration map itself can also be zoomed into although not too far, just enough to see the ongoings of certain explored areas.
What I Didn’t Like
Frostpunk 2 suffers the same detrimental outcomes from its first iteration, where at certain points of the game where you have stabilized your resource management, the game does get easier. Although the game has more to manage like the factions and other settlements, since it is a resource management game, the difficulty of the game relies heavily on its resources.
Once you have that down, the rest of the game gets easier to manage. Mind you, of course, the resource management is difficult, especially the initial hurdle of setting up a few settlements and extraction districts while managing the whims of your city.
The second thing the game suffers from is its storytelling, where the plot of the game is just to survive the great white storm, which is no different from the first game. Although the first game had a Season Pass where you are placed in different places, the story seems to be the same, which is to survive until the great white storm passes. I’ll admit that it is not a story driven game, but some plot to move forward the game would have been much appreciated.
Final Score: 9/10
Frostpunk 2 is easily one of the better games that 11 Bit Studios has developed over the years. It is both depressing and challenging at the same time, which has been the developer’s main attraction for their games. I give the game 9 pies out of 10 pies and I hope they put out more great hits like this and their other title This War of Mine.
Wishlist Frostpunk 2 now on Steam, and top up your Steam Wallet on Codashop.
