Can you save what’s left of civilisation in a frozen world with strong leadership and strategic management? Frostpunk 2, a sequel to the 2018 survival city-builder strategy game, will test your mettle in doing what is best for a city, its people, and yourself.
The first Frostpunk was set in a fictitious, post-apocalyptic world in the 19th century where a series of volcanic eruptions dimmed the sun, causing the temperatures to drop and the world to be engulfed in a permanent winter.
A straggling herd of survivors, led by a Captain who is the game’s protagonist, set up the city of New London huddled around around a life-preserving generator that provides heat.
Thirty years on, in the early 20th century, the old Captain is ailing. You have to step up as the Stewart for New London, and will need to ensure the survival of the city, its people and those who need your help in the Frostlands. Frostpunk 2 tests your leadership, political prowess and ability to make difficult decisions for the greater good.
Winter has come
Unlike most strategy games where you wage war against enemies with weapons, Frostpunk pits you against the persistent freezing cold as the enemy, using technology to ensure the survival of your people.
The temperature is also seasonal, with some seasons causing the temperature to drop even more, which means more fuel needed for the generator to maintain the heat while warmer seasons eases off on the fuel burn.
In Frostpunk 2, resource management is similar to traditional strategy games in that you need to build extraction, farming and manufacturing facilities on nearby lands.
At the start of the game, fuel comes in the form of coal that needs to be extracted from coal seams. As you progress through the Ideas tree to research new technologies and upgrades, more fuel options will be available.
Likewise, food needs to be grown on fertile lands, materials need to be extracted and goods need to be manufactured. As the Steward, resource management is a critical part of your job, as running out of fuel, food and goods can lead to your citizen’s demise.
Adding to the challenge are occasional devastating weather events like whiteouts where strong blizzards will cause the temperature to drop even more, stall your city’s economy, decrease food production and material supplies. Whiteouts will also block out exploration in regions where they occur, causing delay in your efforts to find resources and survivors. Ample warning is usually given so that your city can prepare and stockpile fuel, food and goods in order to wait it out, and is a real test for your resource management skills.
Beyond survival
Frostpunk 2 is a radically different game from its predecessor, with a new political dimension to the gameplay and less micromanagement. In Frostpunk 2, New London has grown and attracted survivors from the surrounding Frostlands, and has a much larger population and workforce.
In contrast to the first game where building zones are restricted in radial segments around the generator, Frostpunk 2 allows for a freer design using hexagonal tiles as long as the criteria for the number of tiles is fulfilled to build a district. This takes away some of the frustration in trying to fit differently sized segments around the generator.
Instead of managing time segments by days, Frostpunk 2 is now timed by weeks. I kind of missed watching the day and night cycles, but it also meant less downtime since no work can be done during the night.
Although my heart aches during weekly reports of people who freeze or starve to death, I didn’t feel such a crippling loss like i did in the first game, since the population for New London now is larger, and certain factions can also help to boost the size of the workforce.
Unlike the first game, you can’t really zoom in to see individual citizens in action, which I miss. Not just because I am kaypoh (Hokkien for being nosey) but it was nice to see the thoughts and concerns of folks on the ground as they go about their daily lives before they turn into complaints.
When critical complaints from the citizens pop up, you might need to take action to address them. This might mean proposing certain laws to be enacted at the Council Hall. Adding to the challenge is a cooldown period for proposing new laws and the factions expecting you to push through their recommendations, so balancing the timing requires quite a bit of planning and time management.
But beyond staying warm and keeping the citizens of New London alive, exploration is equally important as Frostpunk 2 pushes you to expand to wider territories across the Frostlands, find survivors and set up new colonies and settlements.
Although there is still a need to balance resource management to keep the generator running, people fed and clothed, the game forces you to invest in expansion.
Besides the strategy game aspect, what makes the game memorable are the difficult moral decisions that you, as the Steward, have to make and bear the consequences. For instance, there are situations where you can sacrifice some people for the greater good, forcing you to choose between pragmatism and compassion.
However, the high frequency of complaints that require decisions and actions from you, plus the strain of responsibility of your citizens’ lives, can get tedious. There’s also the feeling of futility in trying to save lives when there are seemingly no right decisions to be made, which can be demoralising and wear you down.
What kept me going was making sure the citizens live to see another day and the sense of accomplishment from overcoming challenges, surviving whiteouts, finding other survivors to save, and discovering new locations that can aid in expanding your city.
Politicking on the permafrost
Frostpunk 2 also introduces communities and factions within the population, such as New Londoners who are city dwellers that tend to be more progressive and Frostlanders who have adapted to living in the frozen wilds. Other factions will take root depending on the vision you choose for the city, such as Pilgrims, Stalwarts, Evolvers and Faithkeepers.
These factions are critical as they will vote for or against the laws you propose in the Council Hall. Trying to please the factions to win support will ensure that you stay in your position as the Steward. Siding too much with certain factions and making unpopular decisions with others will result in discontent, losing their trust, and eventually, your place as the Steward.
This forces players to learn about the difficulties of governance and managing discontent, as any decision made will be met with opposition, and will upset or marginalise certain individuals whose thoughts are articulated through pop-ups on the screen. If discontent is not quelled in time, violence may erupt, causing unrest in the society.
Since the choices you make in the game affect how the scenarios play out, this offers some replayability. One can experiment with deciding on a different vision for the city, enacting different laws and pursuing different paths of research.
Apart from the main story campaign that takes over 10 hours to complete, Frostpunk 2 also offers a sandbox Utopia Builder mode that lets you select different locations and goals where you are free to develop your city to meet those achievements.
Sense of snow
Frostpunk 2’s aesthetics are elegant and suitably steampunkish, with a dreary industrial palette. The glowing lines constantly in motion depicting the heat flowing from the generator adds a vibrant and dynamic look to an otherwise depressing landscape filled with snow and soot.
The utilitarian and industrial buildings, accented with glows of fire, plumes of smoke and moving machinery, which are fascinating to watch up close. I just wish we could zoom in and watch the citizens up close as well, although I thought the glum faces of the citizens staring at you when making complaints was a nice touch to remind you that their lives are in your hands.
Accompanied by the orchestral score, which is suitably mournful and heart-rending yet grand and full of hope, Frostpunk 2 is by no means a light-hearted game. However, it is a great simulation for leadership and sacrifice.
The game’s busy interface is full of icons, meters and numbers elegantly designed with gold trims that complement the game’s steampunk theme.
But these took me a while to make sense of what to focus on, and I was even more overwhelmed when new colonies were set up as there was a lot more to manage in terms of transferring manpower, resource flows and transfers and deciding what to be built where.
Frostpunk 2 has a pretty steep learning curve, and the game is not very intuitive about what needs to be done, as there are different branches of research and variants to choose from depending on which faction proposed it.
I had to rely a lot on tutorials to figure out the next steps to take. Fortunately, the game does give some guidance by markers on the technology and legislative trees on what you promised certain factions to work on, such as which laws to enact, technologies to research on, and buildings to build.
TL;DR
A sequel to the 2018 survival city builder, Frostpunk 2 is a significantly different game with more political and faction balancing gameplay than micromanagement and resource gathering.
With less micromanagement than its predecessor, Frostpunk 2 is much bigger in scale with the exploration and setting up of new colonies and settlements in the uncharted Frostlands.
The game’s steep learning curve and plenty of data to analyse make it a great strategy game for honing management, diplomatic and leadership skills, but it can get rather stressful with your virtual citizens’ lives at stake.
Frostpunk 2 is available for PC on Steam at S$38 and is free to play on PC Game Pass for subscribers, or for purchase in the Microsoft Store at S$65.25. PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S gamers will have to wait as the game is not yet available for consoles.
