The original Frostpunk shocked the city-building community by combining brutal survival elements with the classic city-builder and management gameplay. Players were tasked with making difficult choices in a worst-case situation just to survive. While Frostpunk was a great game all-around, it did leave fans wanting more when they managed to complete the story mode. Many wanted to fully expand their reach in the frozen wasteland and truly rebuild society. Then word began to spread about a sequel, and fans were hyped. Fast forward to now, where we finally have Frostpunk 2 in our hands to review – boy, does it not pull any punches.
Story sees New London in a state of desperation
The story picks up where the original Frostpunk left off with the captain dying of old age after fully building up new New London. After a short tutorial that has you looking after a group of nomads, you are then thrust once again into the leader position of New London. Once again you are tasked with finding a sustainable resource to keep the furnace of New London alive so all the residents can stay warm.
Originally, you were trying to find enough coal to survive the coming winters in the first Frostpunk. The new story has the coal reserves running out and a city that is scared of what will happen next. This is where the new fuel source from the tutorial comes in, oil. Of course, you are not going to find any oil around New London. You will need to scout out and build satellite settlements and ship oil back to New London.
The real challenge comes not only from managing your ever-dwindling resources but also from trying to be a great leader in a newly democratic society. New London has become a social melting pot by accepting new settlers from the wintery wastes. These settlers will come with their own ideals that conflict with the established ideals of New London, forcing you to appease all parties to get a majority of votes if you want any laws to pass.
Two substantial changes characterise Frostpunk 2 gameplay
Alongside the many new additions to the policy side of Frostpunk, the actual gameplay has seen two major changes. The first major change is the way you build up your settlement. Since the original city of New London has flourished, you no longer need to build singular buildings huddled around the furnace. Now, you build full districts further out in the winter wastes. Each district takes up several tiles that must all be connected, and get benefits and negatives depending on what they are placed on and what they are next to. Some districts also need to be placed on resource tiles to even function which will eventually deplete the resource – allowing you to deconstruct the district and place a different one there.
The basic districts are Housing, Food, Extraction, Industrial and Logistics. Most of these are self-explanatory. Housing districts are needed for people to live in, Food districts grow food for people to eat, Extraction districts will harvest coal and other resources in the ground for you to use, Industrial Districts will passively produce basic building materials or valuables for your citizens and Logistic Districts are needed to send out exploration teams and plan out your trade routes. Where you place the districts matter. Putting them close together allows them to share heat, but some districts will debuff other districts if they are too close. A Food district will have its output reduced if next to an Extraction district.
You can also place a single building in each district. Some buildings are used to improve all of New London, such as the hospital or schools. However, some builds will improve the district they are placed in. You will have to pick carefully though since you can only place a single building in each district.
The second big change comes from how you have to manage your relationship with the citizens of New London. While you may think it is easy to plan out your city, you have to take into account the requests you will get from the different groups in your city. While you can always choose to ignore requests you don’t agree with, it will lower your trust in the group that requested it. If you lose too much trust you can have your game ended by being voted out of your leadership position when your term is up. Since you will be judged every year by your settlement to see if you can remain in power.
Diplomacy key to winning over district councils
You also need to propose any laws and research that you want the council of the various groups to enact. To get your proposal to pass you will either need to pick something that the majority of the council wants, or you will need to make an agreement with one of the groups to win over their vote. This can lead to you being forced to build a building you don’t want or putting a policy into effect that you don’t agree with. While in the original Frostpunk, you could choose the morally superior policy and try to work around the negative drawbacks of your choice, you must now pick the policy the majority desires or possibly have your city vote you out of power.
All of these new changes combine to provide a fresh new experience that still captures the charm of the original Frostpunk. You must still worry about the basics like keeping your city warm and liveable, while carefully balancing the political side with up to eight different factions inside your city.
Understated but unique art style
Although a majority of the game takes place in a snowy wasteland, Frostpunk 2 still manages to provide a high level of detail where it matters. Zooming in on any part of the world will allow you to see the different ways the ice and snow have managed to pile up over the years, with the tiles showing a slight hint at what resources lie below them. As you expand out your city you will be able to see your workers running about inside the districts and the large machines traveling along the paths your workers use to get between districts.
However, the real art design is shown off in the menus. The ideal tree takes to a frozen lake with each ideal showing up as nodes on branching lines. As you progress into each line and pick from ideals, you form cracks in the ice and break it apart to reveal the oil hidden below, much like how your settlement does to survive. The council menu has you looking down on the council room with everyone placed inside waiting for you to make your proposal. You can hover over different sections of the council to see how many votes each faction has. This gives you a good idea of which groups you want to keep in good graces with.
All of these different screens are accompanied by an ever-faint and eerie backing track. Similar to the wastes you now reside in, the music is quiet but still present. Indeed, it’s sometimes so quiet that you don’t notice it over the hustle and bustle of your city. However, what you will always be able to hear is the wind blowing across the snowy wastes. Bringing in more snow and cold that your city will have to eventually deal with.
Closing thoughts
The original Frostpunk was a brutal city-building game that forced you to make tough choices just to survive and offered no promise that you would succeed in making a sustainable city that could survive the long winter. Frostpunk 2 provides you with plenty of tools on a much larger scale that makes you feel like you are building a huge, successful city; right up to the point that you must make a similar decision as you did in the original Frostpunk.
Overall, Frostpunk 2 is a great sequel to the original. It stays true to the ideals of a brutal survival city builder while not just being a carbon copy. The new additions make you feel more powerful, like nothing can bring down your utopia. Then you zoom out fully to see the speck that your city is in the vast, frozen, wasteland it resides in.