Frostpunk 2 is a city-buildingsurvival video game developed and published by 11 Bit Studios. Set 30 years after the original game, Frostpunk 2 tasks players to take on the role of a leader in an alternate history early 20th century in order to build and manage a city during a catastrophic, worldwide volcanic winter that almost completely destroyed human civilization while making morally and politically controversial choices to ensure its survival. The game was released for macOS and Windows PC on September 20, 2024, with a planned release for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and Series S later in 2025.
Gameplay
In Frostpunk 2, players construct districts instead of individual buildings.
Like its predecessor, Frostpunk 2 is a city-buildingsurvival video game. Set in New London in 1916, 30 years after the "Great Storm" of the original game, the game explores the consequences of the advent of the petroleum industry and players assume the role of the city's new leader, "the Steward", who replaces the now-deceased "Captain" (the player character from the first game). The city is struggling with overpopulation, food and coal shortages, among other issues. Unlike the original game, Frostpunk 2 allows players to build a much larger city. Players can now construct districts instead of individual buildings. Each district serves a particular function, such as providing food, energy, or shelter. Specific buildings can be placed in each district to unlock additional functions.[2] Each district, however, also costs players resources, and players need to plan the design of their cities before expanding.[3]
As the city expands, the player will meet different factions which often have conflicting ideals. Players can access the Idea Tree to investigate new research options. The Idea Tree allows players to explore different ideas proposed by the game's various factions to solve a problem. Adopting a faction's idea may upset other factions and communities.[4] Unlike the first game, the citizens of New London are more involved in the policy-process making. At the Council Hall, 100 members of the community, each representing a certain faction, will cast votes on laws proposed by the player. Players can choose to negotiate with different council members, and they need to reach a certain threshold before a new law can be passed - simple 51-vote majorities for most laws, and two-thirds for anything that may grant the Steward more power (such as the possibility of granting the Steward dictatorial authority, becoming the new Captain).[5] Negotiation, however, requires players to make specific promises for the future, and not being able to uphold them may further upset a certain faction.[6] Unlike the previous game, the gameplay is set on a timescale of weeks, rather than hours and days.[7] As players progress in the game, radicals may grow within each faction, and players must work to counter their influence to avoid the city from descending into chaos.[2]
In addition to the main story campaign, the game also features a sandbox mode named "Utopia Builder". It allows players to choose the starting communities and factions as well as the main objective which is to build a huge metropolis, create large colonies around the city or stockpile supplies in large quantites. The team added that the sandbox mode will have more replay value than the one found in the original game.[3] An official mod tool named FrostKit will also be available at launch.[8][needs update]
Plot
In 1886, New London survives the "Great Storm" that followed the collapse of the British Empire, prospering under the leadership of "the Captain". After 30 years of rule, the Captain is dying, New London is overcrowded, and the Generator - the coal-fired steam engine that has provided heat and power to the city - is running out of fuel. In the prologue mission, a band of wanderers settles in the remains of an oil-fired Dreadnought train and uses its furnace to make camp before a "Whiteout" storm. Afterward, they set out to find New London. By this time, the Captain has died, and his loyalists have named a new leader as Steward. The choices during the prologue determine the route that New London took in the first game's campaign, which then determines the Captain-loyal faction: either the Stalwarts (Order) or the Faithkeepers (Faith). The Steward's first task is to find an alternate source of fuel. Scout teams in the Frostlands find the old Dreadnought and its intact supplies of fuel, and New London begins to adapt the Generator either to use oil exclusively, or a mix of oil, coal and steam provided from external sources. The population starts to further divide into factions, jockeying for power in a newly-formed Council to impose their vision of the future on the city.
After New London survives its first "Whiteout" using its new fuel reserves, the Steward must find more steam cores in the destroyed city of Winterhome, which fell just before the Great Storm, to properly refit the Generator; alternatively, the decision can be made to resettle Winterhome. Tensions between the factions in the city will rise regardless, ultimately resulting in the murder of a councilmember and igniting a civil war between two factions. The Steward must choose between negotiating a peace treaty, expelling one of factions involved in the war, or gather enough support from the council to become the new Captain with full authority over the city and create massive camps to segregate the warring factions. Regardless of the action chosen, the game ends once the player succeeds and resolves the conflict, or fails and the city collapses into anarchy. An Epilogue cutscene summarizes the effect your choices had in the city, as well as the life of Lily May, a child born when the Generator was re-ignited, and who is a teenager by the time of the civil war.
Development
Similar to the first game, Frostpunk 2 was developed by 11 Bit Studios. A team of about 70 people worked on the game's development and production.[9] While the original game was about enduring and surviving an apocalypse, the sequel focused more on keeping a city prosperous, building for a better future, and adapting to a new set of challenges and circumstances. According to game director Jakub Stokalski, while extreme temperature and other natural hazards may still lead to a city's collapse, "social survival is even more important" and mismanaging the populace and not being able to satisfy the demands of various factions may lead to "tension and conflict".[3] Stokalski added that "Frostpunk 2 is really about this observation that we can only come together so far to overcome the obstacles in front of us, and that ultimately the biggest enemy is always human nature".[3] The team took inspirations from stories of towns and cities rebuilding following a period of hardships.[10]
11 Bit Studios announced Frostpunk 2 in August 2021.[11] Early previews of the game revealed the Utopia mode, a sandbox building mode, as the studio expected it to become the most requested feature by the community.[12] The game was initially set to be released for Windows PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and Series S on July 25, 2024.[13] On March 18, 2024, the 11 bit studios team announced the release of a pre-release version of the game for owners of the Deluxe version, which includes the ability to install and run the game in sandbox mode before the main release date.[14] Later that year, on June 27, the game developers announced that the launch date had been postponed to September 20, 2024, following the early access feedback, which led to new additions to the game mechanics.[15]
On November 27, 2024. A roadmap for future updates was released including a "Major Free Content Update" in 2025, as well as three paid DLCs. Two of them, titled "Spectrum" and "Aurora" to be released in 2025 and a third yet unnamed DLC for 2026.
Frostpunk 2 received "generally favorable" reviews from critics, according to review aggregator Metacritic,[16] and 97% of critics recommended the game, according to OpenCritic.[17]
Sales
By September 24, 2024 (four days after global launch on PC), the game had sold more than 350,000 copies and had already recuperated its development and marketing costs.[27]
