What if the Ice Age came back but with temperatures low enough to undo society as we know it? Frostpunk 2 answers this question with a grim display of a world that has forgotten the warmth of life, this time with even more crucial decisions, strategic planning, and heart-wrenching moments.
Survival of the Fittest, Smartest & Luckiest
Settled 30 years after the events of the original Frostpunk, you take the role of the newest Captain in Frostpunk 2 as the previous one has just passed away. Under your guidance, you must lead New London to prosperity by flawlessly commanding the city to gather resources, discover food, research new technologies, and slowly rebuild society as a whole, with the small difference of doing all of that under extremely harsh temperatures that humans would never survive under regular circumstances.
In gameplay, this all translates to a city builder/survival game with hundreds of micro-managements that you must flawlessly handle. The everlasting winter is merciless, reaching temperatures of up to -210 ºF, but you have plenty of time to plan ahead. You only need to make ends meet at the start, but as your civilization grows, you need to make sure it keeps expanding. Survival is important, but building the best city you can is also part of the job.
Getting used to the many systems can definitely be troublesome if you aren’t used to previous works from 11 bit. You have too many facilities to build, new areas to scout and explore, and it takes a while to get to know what direction you should take. Your first few hours will be much slower, but once you get the hang of it, meticulously planning the ideal strategy and crafting innovative buildings from scratch becomes incredibly engaging.
As things get back on track, people start rebuilding what the cold took from them. Many factions start to establish themselves, but not all of them will share the same vision for the city. This brings democracy back, and you can vote and establish laws for the general public. They’ll make it easier to handle many of the traditional societal issues, even if not all people will always be pleased with the new laws.
The Council in Frostpunk 2 is much more interesting than it seems at first. Negotiating with the New Londoners to approve a law requires promising to research something they want at a later point. Sometimes, you’ll have to pass a law for them, which may also force you into another political compromise. It’s a never-ending spiral of deals and promises if you’re not careful, and while they can be beneficial to the city in a way, they may end up deviating you from the main goals.
Remember that this is still a post-apocalyptic setting, so things will always go south given the chance. Workers can get sick, but you cannot let your reduced numbers stop you from dealing with other problems. But if too many are bedridden, you might find yourself with no one else left to work in your facilities, leading to a resource deficit. It can all snowball to you losing Trust from your former allies, which is one of the easiest paths to a game over.
My first attempt at story mode ended similar to how I described, but it taught me a lot about how to approach the game going forward. Everything was smoother during my second run, and I also had a bit of luck with random events, which helped me immensely in surviving some of the early whiteout periods. Superior tactics and effective resource management are still your main concerns, but a bit of RNG help never hurts.
And while this new attempt brought me much more resources easily, it didn’t make it any easier to make the harder decisions when it mattered the most. More than ever, I felt like my own humanity was slipping through my fingers with each hard decision I had to make. But it had to be done. We must survive in Frostpunk 2.
Abandon Your Morality If You Want to Live in Frostpunk 2
Immersion is one of Frostpunk‘s most defining aspects, and it’s not even close. Once you take the helm as Captain, you really feel like you’re in charge of everything. People will live or die by your choices. It’s a lot of responsibility to bear, and it’s reflected by the sheer amount of mini-systems you have to handle at the same time. The first experience can be exhausting as you try to learn about everything, as it all becomes too overwhelming for you to deal with.
It gets even more complicated once you add the political layer. Negotiations with all factions are needed to approve the laws you want, and even if you get the approval of the majority, there will always be those unsatisfied with the outcome. The backlash can be immediate or arrive at a later point, but it always comes back to bite your backside.
It often comes in the form of dealing with people directly. They will immediately comment on your decisions through dialogue boxes, expressing their approval or dismay. More often than not, you’ll be met with the harsh consequences of your actions on an emotional level, as if the game is punishing you for choosing what’s best from a logical point of view. And the hardest choices are usually the best ones for your society.
There was a time when I had to ask for a faction for more resources in Frostpunk 2, fully acknowledging that it would dampen my relationship with them. However, I wasn’t ready for the textbox containing the story of a young musician who gave up her mother’s old violin to make her part. Her dream was indirectly crushed by my own hands, and there was no going back. The violently realistic graphics added even more salt to the wound.
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But not everything was a recipe for despair. At least not immediately. Later in the run, I had too many people joining the city, but still found myself lacking in workforce. My solution was to push for a law that only allowed physically able outsiders to join the city. And, of course, the game had to throw me an emotional story about a girl who was crying because she couldn’t bring her mother in.
Weeks later, the mother returned and begged to see her daughter, which was obviously denied. But I had a new choice now. I could ease the law and allow workers to bring their families inside. And so I did. And I even got some extra Trust for that. I was happy, and the people were also happy. Sounds like a good conclusion, right? Nah, definitely not. There are no happy endings in New London.
I was back at the same point where I started. In fact, new problems started to arise a bit later. A whiteout was imminent, and I couldn’t prepare in time as I was still trying to solve the population/workforce crisis. My heart was moved by the story, and it led me to make a poor decision that cost thousands of lives, including my own after I was deposed as Captain. I cannot blame it all on this single event, but that definitely didn’t help me in any way.
What did it all teach me? Well, in order to survive the cold, you must freeze your own heart first. You can’t neglect the emotional side entirely, but thinking rationally first is mandatory to ensure survival or more people will suffer. It’s impossible to save everyone. Sacrifices will be inevitable. But you can diminish them. The generator in the Central District becomes a beacon of hope, but it can also bring despair to the citizens.
Eternally Frozen in a Cycle of Death
If you’re not used to Frostpunk or the genre in general, chances are that your first few runs will end up in failure in one way or another. There are just too many variables to consider, and it’s almost impossible to make the correct judgments when first experiencing all of it. But that’s where the fun is, as this harsh, cold reality makes it even more satisfying when you manage to put all pieces in place, minimizing all sacrifices and making the city prosper.
When you fail, you can start over or resume from an earlier point, this time bringing all of your knowledge about the cold to the field. You’ll get further and further progressively until you can finally manage to. And after all of the hardship you had to endure, it’s really satisfying to have a successful run. If that wasn’t enough for you, the Utopia Builder mode is always there for you to challenge yourself to endure in the wastelands as long as you can.
But for me, the story was the main appeal of Frostpunk 2. The desolate ambiance, together with the very fitting visuals, perfectly represents what it would be like to endure against all odds in a world that has long forgotten its individuals. The social development in your city can easily change with the slightest of choices, which always brings some extra spice to new attempts at surviving.
The main campaign can be beaten in a few hours with strict planning, but it’ll still be quite punishing. Sometimes, a random occurrence can be your downfall, and it seems like there’s no way around it, depending on how far committed you are. It makes sense given the game’s setting, but it’s still a bit frustrating, especially when you have to repeat the same things over and over until you get to a point where you can diverge to a new path.
But overall, this isn’t a bucket of cold water over the whole experience. Frostpunk 2 is a very unique take on the builder simulator genre, leading you to make the hardest of decisions, only to mock you for your accomplishments and failures alike. But there’s always something to uncover at the end of the frozen cave. Is it a hope of survival, or is it an inevitable, cold departure? Only you can decide it.
Verdict: Recommended
Frostpunk 2 releases on September 20 for PC. A review code for the game was provided by the publisher. Reviewed on PC.
Published: Sep 17, 2024 01:01 pm