This might be an unpopular opinion, but I did not enjoy Frostpunk 2.
Frostpunk 2 is a society survival game set in an apocalyptic blizzard ravaged earth.
In this article, we’ll be giving a full review of the game and ranking it from decaf to fully caffeinated.
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Story
The game is set in an apocalyptic alternate 1800s world, overcome by blizzards, and barely livable. You’ll start off in the prologue, showing you how your predecessor kept the colony alive, but once completed your brought right back to the present where you predecessor is now indisposed, and the role of the steward of the city has fallen to you.
You’ll navigate the different challenges your city faces, and are treated to plenty of different first hand stories of your citizens, as well as the overarching narrative that carries the game play. Make no mistake, the story of the game is haunting, and brutal. The immersive cut scenes are fantastic, drawing you in to the story in a gritty way, and providing context for the game play
The mini stories within the game of each faction, and individual citizens, add a side of realism to the game, giving you insight into how your governing is effecting the people, however after a while they do feel very rinse and repeat, with you getting very similar stories from a few loud characters, and leading the interactions to actually feel quite impersonal.
I will say that the story can feel quite disjointed, with the cut scenes almost pulling you out of the game too much, and almost feel overkill for the information they share. While they are brilliantly constructed, it definitely feels like a case of: are these really necessary, particularly as they impact on how the game performs.
That being said, the overarching narrative, while disjointed, is immersive and does drive the gameplay so for story, I’m rating Frostpunk 2 as Buzzed.
GAMEPLAY
At first glance, the game play feels pretty good. You’ve just taken over as the steward of the fledgling New London colony and you need to source fuel for the generator. Without a running generator, the colony will literally freeze to death, so it definitely is a life or death matter.
Establishing a fuel source is only one part of the equation for survival, as you’ll need to establish different zones for housing, food production, logistics, industry and extraction, which allow you to provide different resources, and to do so you’ll need to first make sure you can build on the areas by frostbreaking them. Your resource needs are divided into similar categories – housing, food, materials, goods, prefabs, cores, and fuel, and you’re given an indication in the UI as to whether or not you’re producing enough.
To be able to build anything you need to ensure you have enough workers, as well as various different resources ranging from heatstamps to cores. After a period, you can establish logistic zones which allow you to explore the frostlands and find more resources, points of interest, and other survivors to bring in to your colony. You can also establish different colonies that can bring in resources or perks for your other colonies, but come, of course, at a cost
Alongside this you also have the society side of the game. As steward, you’ll be the head of the council, and it’ll be up to you to careful manage the different factions in the colony. Each faction has different political views, ideology, and ideas, and each hold seats in the council. Want to pass a law? Well you need to make sure you’ve got enough votes in your favour, and negotiating with each faction is how you can get things through.
Now if you come into this game expecting a city builder, you’ll probably be pretty disappointed. The city building side of the game feels more like a resource management game, and not a great one at that.
I get that this game is supposed to be brutal and challenging, but a good game play loop requires a level of hope that you can actually achieve the goals set out for you, and that really doesn’t exist in this game. Even on the lower difficulty settings your given inadequate resources, so you can never truly meet your colonies needs, and it definitely feels like a lesson in frustration. While making impossible choices may be the concept of the game, the game is lacking any reward for your efforts, making it feel relentless and often pointless.
The society management side is similar, and it often feels like you’re engaging in a ping pong match overturning and reinstating the same two laws over and over again just to keep the peace. While, yes a lot of this seems to be ‘the point’ of the game, it actually has the opposite effect and feels like your actions don’t actually have any impact in the game.
I’m all for a difficult resource management game, but this doesn’t feel like it has any real balance and that nothing you do actually impacts how the resources flow in the game. I went into the game expecting to make brutal and unforgiving decisions, but I found that the decisions you make almost don’t feel like they have any impact, so it doesn’t really feel like you’re having to make any difficult calls. I had high hopes for the society side, and wouldn’t have minded that it wasn’t as heavy in the city building if it was done well.
Instead, you’re left with a game that feels like your cycling through the same laws, and pushing resources around just to hold the colony together, not really making any progress, and really creating a game that kind of feels empty.
I will add that I played through the entire story mode, but didn’t play the utopia mode, so I would be interested to see how that one plays and if it feels any better, but for game play, I’m rating Frostpunk 2 as Moderately Hyped.
DESIGN
Say all you want about the game play, but this game looks fantastic. The unforgiving apocalyptic aesthetic is evident in all of the design elements of the game, really providing a gritty and harsh feel to everything. The art style is dark and harsh, matching the game’s setting, and it’s actually pretty incredible how much detail they’ve been able to pack in to a frozen world that mostly is a whole lot of white.
I particularly loved the council scenes, and felt like they really hit a nice note, with the voice acting and sound effect really immersing you in the world, not just there, but throughout the game.
The music is a great soundscape to run a colony too, matching the apocalyptic vibe, whilst providing an epic and immersive soundtrack.
There’s no doubt that this game is designed incredibly, so for design, I’m rating Frostpunk 2 as Fully Caffeinated.
ORIGINALITY
Frostpunk as a game series is generally well known for being the first really brutal society management games, and the second game in the series does deliver on the same theme. It could be compared to other dystopian colony sim games like New Cycle, but ultimately this is a game that still captures the harsh feel that the first Frostpunk gave us.
It still is world’s apart from other games in the same genre, with the story, setting, and world environment all feeling completely different from anything else, so for originality, I’m rating Frostpunk 2 as Fully Caffeinated
THE FINAL BREW
This game was one of my most anticipated games releasing this year. I am a big fan of colony sim games, and was really intrigued by the society side of the game.
While Frostpunk 2 features some incredible design, and a pretty great overarching story line, there’s a lot to be desired in terms of how the game plays. I’m certain there’s probably a lot of people that will love this one, but for me it just wasn’t enjoyable after the novelty wore off, and didn’t really deliver the gut punch I wanted it to.
We’ve ground the beans, we’ve carefully weighed and pressed the grinds, and brewed this game down. Now it’s time for a taste test….Frostpunk 2 Kinda Kicks.
Frostpunk 2 is available on Steam, Xbox series X and S, and is part of game pass, and PlayStation 5 now. You can find more info here
Until next time, stay caffeinated!
