Summary
Frostpunk 2is the 2024 sequel to the 2018 survival city-builder,Frostpunk.The setting for both games is a steampunk version of Earth in the early 1900s where the Earth is inexplicably plunged into a very intense ice age. The first game has players assume the role of the Captain, who takes charge of a city of survivors who have made their way to a steampunk generator built in the frozen Arctic wilderness. They must guide their city through multiple crises and establish a new society in the face of immense hardship.
The sequel takes place thirty years later, just after the Captain’s death from old age. The player assumes the role of the Steward, who also guides the city and its people through the hardships of the frostland, but with significantly less power. Players must appease a city council,balance the wants and needs of various factions, and expand their steampunk society to a scale that would have seemed impossible in the original game. Many aspects ofFrostpunk 2are expanded versions of ideas from the original, which changes the experience for the game’s players.
1Manage Trust And Tension
Similar Metrics To Hope And Discontent
In the original game, players can lose the game by having low hope or high discontent for too long. If either happens, the player is banished from the city and a short message shows that the city and its exiled captain will likely not survive the frost.
Frostpunk 2has a similar system in Trust and Tension, although they operate somewhat differently. Tension builds between the people of New London through faction relationships with the Steward, certain laws, and even through buildings like Patrol Watchtowers. Trust, like Hope in the first game, falls as citizens die, especially without ceremonial funerals. Players need to manage their citizens' happiness to have a chance at keeping the city together and functional.
2Guide The City’s Zeitgeist
Guide The City Along 3 Different Axes
Guiding the society of New London is more nuanced inFrostpunk 2than its predecessor. Rather than simply furthering the chosen path of Order or Faith, the player must balance their apocalyptic society’s values across several metrics that come together to form thezeitgeistof its people.
Thezeitgeist, or dominant cultural attitude, is measured along the axes of Adaptation/Progress, Equality/Merit, or Reason/Tradition. Each faction has a specific set of values that correlate to thezeitgeist, such as theIcebloods' value of Adaptationor the Technocrats' devotion to Progress. Players need to keep these balanced or find ways to appease factions that stand against the Laws and tech that the player has been choosing. Otherwise, they will face protests and even civil war.
3Listen To The People When Researching New Tech
Everyone In The City Comes Up With Solutions
The Idea Tree is a unique take on the standard research tree found in many strategy games. Rather than progressing along a branching or linear path, the technologies in the Idea Tree are proposed solutions to problems that the city faces. Players have to side with one faction whenever choosing something to research.
For example, Adaptation-oriented factions like the Icebloods approve of Moss-Filtration Towers but Progress-oriented factions would rather see standard Ventilation Towers built instead. The fact that research involves the politics of the game is a great way that the sequel differs from the originalFrostpunkas well as the majority of strategy games.
4Multiple Factions Exist At All Times
In the originalFrostpunk,players occasionally had to deal with the demands of factions. In its story, for example, a group of people called the Londoners threatened to leave the city unless certain demands were met.
Frostpunk 2expands on the idea of factions and makes them a more central part of the story and gameplay. Outside of the prologue, there are always at least two factions represented by the citizens of the player’s city and settlements. They have different ideas for solutions in the Idea Tree, different values they want represented through laws, and even different types of buildings that they demand to be built or demolished. Appeasing and maintaining good relations with each of the factions is a large part of the game, and can be a delicate balancing act, especiallywhen a whiteout is in the forecast.
5Deal With Problems In A More Abstract Way
Heat is Managed And Spent In More Ways Than In The Original
InFrostpunk,players have intimate knowledge of everything going on in their city. They can see the names of individual citizens, if they’re sick, unemployed, and even where they live, down to the specific house or tent.
SinceFrostpunk 2’s city is significantly larger, much of this information is unavailable. Rather than seeing every individual facet of an issue, the game simply shows whether problems are major, minor, or absent. Clicking on the problem also shows whether the issue is growing more problematic, remaining stagnant, or diminishing. Managing thesemore abstract problemstakes some time to get used to, as things may not seem as urgent for new players as they do in the original game.
6Manage Many More Types Of Resources
Use More Than The Basic Set Of Materials From The Original
In the first game, players had a limited number of resource types — wood, metal, raw food, and cooked food — to manage while building New London. InFrostpunk 2, the two types of food were consolidated into a single category, as were the construction materials. This streamlined one part of the game’s resource management to make other aspects more complex.
The sequel adds goods to the list, which are necessary to keep crime from growing. Another addition is Prefabs, which are required to build or expand districts, and to construct buildings. Both of these can be manufactured from materials in Industrial Zones. Other new resources are different fuel types for the generator, so even managing the city’s heat is more complicated than it was in the original game. Having so many resources to stockpile is a major challenge when starting a new game in the storyor Utopia Builder.
7Use Districts To Expand
Only Some Individual Buildings Can Be Built Directly By The Player
In the originalFrostpunk, players had to individually place every single building from the very first tents to Advanced Wall Drills and Depots. Managing resources and employment was a careful process that involved expanding consistently without overextending the fledgling city.
InFrostpunk 2, players carve out an area bydeploying frostbreaking teamsand then construct an entire district at once. These districts are significantly larger than anything players could build in the original game, and they showcase how much larger New London is thirty years after the original game. Once a district has been expanded, players can place buildings that they have unlocked through the Idea Tree in the two slots they can control directly.
8The Council Votes On New Laws
The Steward Does Not Have The Authority That The Captain Had
Whenever a law is proposed inFrostpunk 2, the 100 members of the city’s Council vote for or against it, unlike the first game where the Captain had absolute authority in New London. The 100 members of the Council come from the active factions in the game, and each group has certain views related to thezeitgeistof the city.
Since laws can progress or hinder different aspects of thezeitgeist,players may have to negotiate with larger factions to pass legislation that they disagree with. Making promises (and keeping them!) is a major part of keeping the city together.
9Build Multiple Cities
Several Cities Can Be Directly Managed By The Player
As players explore the frostland inFrostpunk 2, they come across locations that can become permanent settlements. Players can send supplies, people, and a core to build the generator and start this new city. Once that is done, players directly control everything in the settlement exactly as they do in their starting city.
Transferring resources and people between these settlementsand the main city becomes a difficult balancing act, as each subsequent city is specialized in an area like Food or Materials and typically can’t become self-sustaining without a lot of effort. Switching between up to four cities at a time makes this balancing act even more precarious, but it is extremely rewarding to truly create a society that spans the frozen wastes of the game’s post-apocalyptic world.
10Operate On A Larger Scale Than Ever
Frostpunk 2 Operates On A Much Grander Time And Space
Frostpunk 2is larger than its predecessor in every way. It is normal for players in the sequel to managethousands of citizens, while the original game had a cap of 600 people. They manage multiple cities instead of just staying in New London, and the use of districts means that even the first build ordered by the player increases the city to a size that would have been unfathomable in the first game.
While this is impressive, the scale of time thatFrostpunk 2uses is even more impressive. The original game’s story takes place over 48 days, making it nearly two months long. The sequel, by contrast, measures time in weeks. It can take longer than the original game just to research an idea or explore the frostland. Managing the sheer scale of the world ofFrostpunk 2is a major change from the original game and is a great showcase of the expansion of the original game’s ideas.
