Frostpunk 2 review: An ambitious and excellent survival city-builder

The coal mines are running dry. The last outpost shipment arrived a week ago, and it's already been exhausted. The new housing districts are crowded. Hundreds are dying, crying out for the Steward to act. If we can just hold out until the oil extractors are finished, we'll be fine, but the Stalwarts faction leaders are braying for blood.

That's how things go in Frostpunk 2, an ambitious sequel that takes the concept of surviving a new ice age to the next level. It's a thrilling and harrowing experience in equal measures, one that tests what it means to be a leader and pushes what a city-building game can be well beyond the scope of the original Frostpunk, a game that I loved when it first launched back in 2019. 

Resource shortages and constant cold remain, but zealous factions take the stage in 11 bit studios' latest experience. A few balance issues and an unfortunate lack of accessibility-focused options aside, it's well worth taking this plunge into the ice.

What is Frostpunk 2?

Frostpunk 2 is a true sequel, and it pushes the scope of the setting hard. (Image credit: Windows Central)

Frostpunk 2 is a city-building survival game developed and published by 11 bit studios, the team that previously worked on games like This War of Mine and the original Frostpunk.

Like its predecessor, Frostpunk 2 tasks players with overseeing a city in the middle of another ice age, balancing resources, exploring the wastes, constructing buildings, and passing new laws in order to manage frozen post-apocalyptic life. If you don't have enough food, people starve. If you don't have enough fuel, they'll go cold. Starve and freeze for too long, and people will die...if they don't oust you first.

Where Frostpunk 2 differs wildly from the first game is in its sheer scale. While Frostpunk tasked players with helping a few dozen to a few hundred people survive the ice over the course of days and weeks, Frostpunk 2 has you see several thousand survivors through months and years. 

With this huge increase in scale comes a bevy of new options, most of which are focused on diplomacy, as players will have to carefully negotiate with multiple factions in the city, each of which has different goals about how best to endure the ice.

Frostpunk 2 review: Story and characters

Laws have consequences, both good and bad. An educated child may not be working, but they dream of a new future. (Image credit: Windows Central)

Frostpunk 2 is a true sequel, following years after the events of the original game. With the captain who founded New London passing away, the city selects a Steward (you) to guide it and set the course for the future. That won't be easy, as New London's population has grown exponentially. Instead of a few hundred ragged survivors, thousands now call the city home, many of whom were born after fleeing the collapse of the modern world. 

These people are forming new communities, factions, and traditions to pass on. Some might carry the legacy of Order or Faith that helped define New London in times of crisis, but others like the Pilgrims are looking to welcome new ways of life. The choices you make across the game's chapters end up embracing or alienating these groups, and I often found that something I did an hour or three earlier made a particular path easier or harder. 

The increased scope of the game initially led me to worry that it would result in being detached from the communities I managed, but as always, 11 bit studios' writing hits hard, with snippets of the citizenry's lives highlighted from time to time. It's one thing to see that hundreds froze to death because of a mistake you made, but it's quite another to see how the event radicalized people who trusted you. 

Frostpunk 2 doesn't tell you what to do or what's morally correct, but it does ask that you understand the cost of whatever you're trying to accomplish. 

Frostpunk 2 review: Gameplay and features

Swaying delegates can make a vote pass with ease, but there's always a price. (Image credit: Windows Central)

Many of the gameplay systems in Frostpunk 2 will be familiar to veterans of the first game, with players stockpiling various resources in order to keep the community sated. There are some new elements, such as Frostbreaking to open up new paths or building entire districts at a time, but it's easy to wrap your head around. 

By far the biggest difference here is in passing laws to get things done. Where Frostpunk cast you as a lone figurehead, Frostpunk 2 has you take on the role of a mediator. You can wish to pass a law enshrining children's education over workplace apprenticeships, but if you don't have the votes, it won't be possible. 

The primary method of getting votes for deals will be through bargaining. Maybe the Stalwarts aren't a fan of your plan for a Biowaste Hothouse, but you promise that you'll research a piece of technology that's of interest, so they go along with it in the moment. Carefully fulfilling these deals across the different factions builds up your Trust. Fail to fulfill your end of the bargain, and they'll push you out. 

Being trusted is key, but it's almost impossible to keep everyone equally happy.  (Image credit: Windows Central)

Over time, these factions become more and more radicalized. A group that views you favorably after a year might hold rallies in your support down the line. At the other end of the spectrum, a group you consistently irritate over and over may start holding protests, shutting down districts and damaging buildings in riots until you negotiate.

It's an engaging set of dynamics, but it does end up feeling a little imbalanced in a few ways. Right now, a handful of specific technologies and routes are simply far more useful than their counterparts, meaning you can end up feeling at a distinct disadvantage simply because of something you didn't know. It goes against the grain of the rest of the games' themes, so I hope 11 bit studios gives the more egregious examples a balance pass before long.

Frostpunk 2 review: Visuals and audio

Frostpunk 2 is fast-paced, but you can always zoom in for a quiet moment. (Image credit: Windows Central)

Frostpunk 2 looks great, with 11 bit studios harnessing Unreal Engine 5 to deliver some truly gorgeous ice and snow. Construction is a huge part of any city-building game, and it's a downright joy to watch districts come alive in Frostpunk 2, with parts carved into the snow and foundations set as buildings are put in place. While the days pass in mere seconds, you can zoom in on any particular district to get a "realistic" look at what's happening, with crowds of people and the occasional automaton working, celebrating, or rioting. 

Running on my RTX 3070 and an NVME SSD, I never had any performance problems, with Frostpunk 2 maintaining a solid 60 FPS all the way from the beginning of my playthrough to the closing credits. The game takes a moment to compile shaders each time you boot it up, which never took long. Even if it slows down getting into the experience by a few seconds, it's preferable to the infamous stutter struggle that many other games suffer from.

Composer Piotr Musiał (who previously collaborated with 11 bit studios on This War of Mine and Frostpunk) again lends his talents in crafting the score for Frostpunk 2. The tunes here are less sorrowful and more angry, speaking to a populace no longer concerned with pure survival, but instead lashing out at perceived slights. When everything is collapsing and all your plans fail, these tracks are a huge part of the reason it feels so panicked.

I did note that the load times got longer the further I played through the story mode. Initially, it only took a couple of seconds to hop back into my playthrough, but by the end, it took around half a minute. This is hardly the worst load times ever, but it feels worthy to note, especially considering the (theoretically) unending Utopia Builder mode could stretch on for far longer than the 8 hours or so of playing through the story. 

Frostpunk 2 review: Accessibility and approachability

There's a dark mode UI, but it's not finalized at launch. (Image credit: Windows Central)

Frostpunk 2 features some difficulty options, letting players individually customize their playthrough from the outset. Maybe you want finding food and fuel to be a challenge, but you'd prefer exploring the wasteland and setting up colonies to be easy? Maybe you'd prefer the opposite. Either way, you can have the experience you want, though be warned that difficulty can't be changed once you've started playing.

Frostpunk 2 does not include many explicit accessibility options, so I really hope to see more added in future updates. There is a dark mode UI that's a bit easier on your eyes if you're playing in a dark room — especially considering how bright most of the game is — but this mode is unfinished as of launch, meaning you can run into visual glitches if you use it.

Should you play Frostpunk 2?

You're going to love Frostpunk 2 (Image credit: 11 bit studio)

With grander scope and scale than its predecessor, Frostpunk 2 asks players to not only survive, but thrive. You're not trying to make it just one more night, you're actively building for the future, either with the cooperation of or in opposition to the communities that you're protecting. It's a huge leap, and one that 11 bit studios (mostly) handles with aplomb.

There are some things to tweak, with technologies and routes that should be balanced in order to make different paths more appealing. I'm also hoping that the team can refine the dark mode UI and expand the accessibility options in future updates. 

Overall, though, Frostpunk 2 is a harrowingly wonderful time, and I'm eagerly looking forward to seeing what kinds of new scenarios the developers add in the promised DLC packs. 

Frostpunk 2 launches across Windows PC on Sep. 20, 2024, and will launch on Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5 at a later date. It's also included in Xbox Game Pass. Deluxe Edition owners can begin playing early on September 17.