Frostpunk 2 [Review]

The long awaited sequel to Frostpunk, Frostpunk 2 is quite an effective game. The game has been out for awhile, but it also took awhile for my thoughts to coalesce on it. 

Platforms: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and Series S, GeForce Now, Microsoft Windows, Mac operating systems

Developer: 11 Bit Studios

Genres: Survival game, Strategy video game, City-building game, Strategy

Publisher: 11 Bit Studios

Frostpunk 2 is one of those experiences that fit many hats. It's an engaging city builder with lots of things to fiddle with, and overall it really scratches that city building itch perfectly. What I find more impressive is how it succeeds as a horror game. Everything from the graphics to the storytelling to the music seeks to evoke the feeling of being afraid of the future and fighting for survival. It’s a heavy experience, one that drained me while I played and weighed on me after. I don’t mean this is as a bad thing. This is exactly what the game sets out to do. The fact that the game had this ambitious of a vision and executed it so smoothly is something to be celebrated, even if it’s an uncomfortable experience.

Frostpunk 2 opens on its tutorial mission featuring wanders who branched off from the failing New London. From there, the city building begins. The world is a cold frozen wasteland and everything is encased under sheets of ice. First off, the ice must be broken up. My workers could only break up so much with each attempt. It’s important to constantly break up ice as the ice frees up resources and space, but it takes constant attention and manpower to maintain. Failing to do so results in not having access to necessary resources and falling further and further behind the curve. If I was behind the curve, my citizens would die of cold, or starvation or disease, and those left behind would lose trust in me. Eventually I would be stripped of my title and sent out to perish in the wasteland.

Once the ice is broken up, a home base must be established around a heat source. Oil must be obtained to keep the heat source running. Housing must be built. Food must be grown. This is all against a ticking clock, as a whiteout is nearing that will render your people trapped in the city and relying on food storage.

In Frostpunk 2, there are hard choices to make in the name of survival. Even if things go smoothly (which they did on my third attempt with the tutorial) I had to make my people suffer with skipping meals and extra shifts to make sure we met the food quota. When things didn’t go smoothly, darker, heavier choices awaited me. In the tutorial, if I was going to be short on food, I could slaughter what was a beacon of hope for my city, a colony of seals. If I decided not to do that, or that wasn’t enough, then there was an option to expel the elders of the colony who had offered to sacrifice themselves so there was enough food. Both choices had haunting results.

Frostpunk 2 is a tough, brutal game, one in which I tried and failed until eventually I succeeded. Through it there’s a certain euphoria of surviving against the odds, successfully planning a city and navigating disaster. On my third attempt I did not need to sacrifice either the seals or the elders, which unlocked an achievement, and left me with the feeling of a well-earned victory. My little city survived the whiteout to fight another day.

It’s probably very clear at this point, but I’ll confirm it – while Frostpunk 2 is not going to be for everyone, I wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone interested. I am aware there were some performance problems on launch that patches have addressed. Personally, I played it on a low-mid tier gaming PC, and experienced everything on the lowest settings. Honestly though, it still looked superb for me, ran smoothly, and I didn’t notice any issues. My only complaint with the game would be actually learning it. The tutorial requires the player to do the work of reading encyclopedias like entries, and doing a bit of investigation and exploration to figure out how to play. This is probably my least favorite way to learn how to play a game. That said, as frustrating as it initially was, Frostpunk 2 is not a hard game to learn, and now that I know how to play, I’m unlikely to forget it.

In the end, Frostpunk is the very definition of a 10/10 for me. Definitely one of the best things I’ve played all year. 

SCORE: 10/10