Frostpunk 2 Review (PC) – Frostier and Shinier

An alert appears on my HUD as I’m dutifully watching over my expanding steampunk city in the frozen tundra. A whiteout approaches. An avalanche of snow, wind and desperate cold threaten to starve my resources and dwindle my ailing population. In the original Frostpunk, this would have been game over, a restart beckoning. This time around, I’m prepared. Stocks full of food, my generator in overdrive with oil reserves I’d carefully curated. My city will survive, barely. Welcome to Frostpunk 2, where the cold is icier and your stewardship is smoother, yet no less arduous.

I spent some time with 11 Bit Studios’ first city builder entry not too long ago and found it thoroughly brutal. My city collapsed within the opening 2-3 hours multiple times, and on my 4th attempt, I scraped to the end game screen with about 10 people remaining. While presenting a compelling trial of your strategy abilities in a wonderfully brutal post-apocalyptic world, it was limited by constant micro-management and restricted building systems. Frostpunk 2 streamlines many of these systems and increases the scale of the community you must navigate at the end of the Earth.

Is this slicker, oil-powered machine a significant upgrade from the generator that came before? Can it shed more heat onto a world already frozen to the brink of extinction? Fire up the coal oven, we have a city to save.

A (Less) Frosty Reception

The old captain has passed. The city needs a new leader, and who better than you? Thrust into the role of steward, you must steer the populace in whichever way you see fit to ensure their survival. Right off the oil-slicked bat, Frostpunk 2’s sequel improvements are apparent. Firstly, there’s an actual campaign structure. Split into a prologue and five chapters, you’re guided through a series of scenarios with clear objectives to move things forward. I found it a much more enticing structure, that provides more of a foundation to learn the mechanics, while also throwing unique obstacles at you to overcome.

On the initial difficulty, it took me about six hours to finish Frostpunk 2, though there are multiple difficulties to master. Each chapter has its own time pressured problem to solve, whether it be limited coal, an incoming whiteout to prepare for, or even an uprising to quell. I was sucked in immediately, owing to how much more accessible the sequel’s approach is compared to its predecessor. If you loved the concept, world and gameplay of the original, but struggled with its onboarding and complicated systems, the sequel may be just the tonic you need.

Jumping into the prologue and throughout the story, I observed a couple of significant improvements over the original. For one, the size of the city you must lead has been enlarged. Gone are individual buildings and assigning each individual worker. Instead, your population numbers thousands as you erect districts. Food districts are placed on sources of… you guessed it, food. Extraction districts harvest different resources automatically. Straight away, the level of micro-management is reduced, the scale is increased and a serene sense of streamlining washes over the experience.

Don’t be fooled, however, resources are still in a constant tug-of-war with your sanity. The frost land is still a hostile place to survive, you’re now just managing more people, in a more efficient way. This single change worked wonders for my enjoyment of Frostpunk 2, and demonstrates the perfect “sequel improvement”. The interface is smoother with an easier selection and placement. Frostpunk 2 does away with clunky frustration to focus on the elements of the game that work.

Crude Toil

Whether in the campaign or the scenario-based Utopia mode, resource collection is still the primary dilemma to solve. You only have so many workers, but you need to harvest food, generator fuel (i.e. coal or oil), materials, goods, as well as provide adequate housing for your toiling population. The district system works well – first, you crack the ice to create placement slots, then you erect your districts to provide the necessary goods and services. Running out of any resource is a death sentence, so balancing needing prefabs and heatstamps while also not going into a materials deficit, for example, is key.

It’s an addictive loop, made even deeper thanks to the multiple research trees you can expand into. Too many industry districts may lead to huge amounts of grime, causing squalor to build and cause tension in your people. Too much tension, and they may rebel. Fail to notice how your cracking machines are exposing their workers to disease, and you’ll soon notice your available worker count dropping dramatically. To that end, there are individual buildings you can research and then build into districts, usually up to two per district.

There becomes a flow to proceedings – maintain constant research, monitor resources to ensure you’re saving up what you need, and scrape together what you can to install your next essential structure. Once again, the interface and HUD is slick, making it easy to understand what can be placed where. Disease, squalor, cold and food are all handily showcased via small icons instead of garish meters, allowing you to quickly and unobtrusively keep track of each potential problem. While it’s a lot to mentally account for, there are always options that provide the possibility of solving or reducing any particular problem.

This was something I struggled with in the original. A mistake from an hour or two ago would cause a chain reaction that then felt utterly unsolvable. My city doomed to destruction or starvation. However, the sequel provides you with more information and pathways to tackle things. You still absolutely have to forward plan and prepare, but it’s more forgiving in providing tools to keep the generator’s flame alive.

The Cold Shoulder

As the steward of the last bastion of humanity, it’s not just the cold boulders you need to worry about, but the cold shoulders too. Factions are back and expanded as well. You’ll have your initial binary choice of the Faithkeepers and the militaristic ones (forget their name, I never pick them) like in the original, but now there are other groups at play. The Frostlanders favour expansion above all else, while the Evolvers believe purely in adaption and arduous Darwinism. Your choices in events, research and council meetings will dictate your standing with all of them, providing or limiting options.

Every research node, for instance, must be selected according to one of the faction’s visions for it. You may love the sound of one upgrade variant, but what if it’s with a faction you utterly detest? Suddenly, it’s a more complicated choice. What makes the factions system so effective in Frostpunk 2 is the council. You’re steward, not captain. Your word isn’t law… yet. But, it could be. Every law you research or attempt to change must pass a vote, including if you want to give yourself more powers. However, each faction has X amount of delegates, so you may need to make promises you can’t keep or negotiate to get your laws passed.

It’s a less guff-filled version of the US Congress or a more orderly version of Parliament. However, the underhanded dealings are no less common. Incorporating factions into law-shaping, research direction and tacit threats to manage (i.e. through uprisings or fervour) makes it an engaging challenge to constantly monitor. I never found it intrusive or overbearing, and leaning on a favourable faction to draw more heatstamps added a benefit to keeping strong relations. I did my best to keep everyone moderately tolerable, but in the end, true to their creed, my Faithkeepers were the only ones who truly kept faith in my leadership.

I’m sure that doesn’t say anything about my personality that I sided with a zealot-like faith to maintain my grasp onto power… right? Either way, navigating political friction is far more fun in Frostpunk 2 than it is when observed through Twitter X or Meta, so that’s cool. Even in the Utopia mode, you’ll also have to establish and manage both factions and the council, making it an intrinsic part of the experience that’s satisfying.

Careful On The (V)ice

Regardless of how you manage your central city of New London, you’ll be forced to venture into the wider wasteland. Whether for resources, people or discovery, sending out scouting squads is imperative if you want to achieve a post-apocalyptic utopia. This area has also seen a major overhaul and expansion from the original. Colonies need to be established to draw on resources like oil that may not be available in the vicinity of New London. You can transfer items and people between the colonies and your central city with relative ease, and keeping an eye on them is relatively low maintenance.

At certain points, you’ll need to be flicking through a lot of screens to ensure everything is running as smoothly as possible, which can be taxing. Establishing trails or skyways is also a little frustrating at times, but this is very infrequent. It’s a much bigger mechanic than it was previously, so some teething issues are to be expected. However, the premise of settling the wider wasteland and the potential to oversee numerous hubs across a larger area feels like a natural and impressive widening of Frostpunk’s vision.

As mentioned throughout this review, the core theme here is expansion in a streamlined fashion, and in the wider exploration systems, 11 Bit Studios mostly nail this once again. The world map is easy to navigate, most icons are quickly interacted with, and the consequences for each decision are clearly communicated. While it does add a bit more of the micro-management back into proceedings, it’s a worthwhile trade-off for a deeper experience, in my opinion.

No Cracks In This Frost

I think it’s worth emphasising that throughout my entire playtime of Frostpunk 2, the game ran as frictionlessly as a kid stepping onto the ice for the first time and slipping straight over. My gaming PC only has 8GB of RAM and yet, there were no slowdowns at any point. No crashes, visual bugs, audio problems or anything of note whatsoever. The graphics are stunningly rendered, well, for as much as endless fields of glistening snow can look aesthetically pleasing. I really enjoyed the steampunk touches, such as how electricity and power flow throughout your city.

Visually and audio wise, this is a big step up from what came before. The increased budget has clearly been put to good use and the fact this runs so well is genuinely remarkable. I know this should be a relatively basic requirement for games, but we all know too well the issues that typically plague the industry. Frostpunk 2 is one of those pleasant exceptions to the rule.

There’s not a lot in terms of cutscenes or voice acting for the most part, but the in-game events do a lot to make up for their lack of presence. I found myself with a myriad of ethical dilemmas to navigate, like how I intentionally collapsed a mine with workers still in it to prevent a toxic spill. Or, how I forced a colony to continue extracting a precious resource until the area became “catastrophic”. I mean, that’s a little dramatic, only a few thousand of them perished. Whether choosing if parenthood should be mothers only or if questionable additives should be mixed into food to make your stockpile last longer, you’ll have plenty to ponder.

While the themes are dark and brutal, the throwing up of so many moral and ethical choices is thoroughly fascinating. I would say don’t judge me for my choices, but you most definitely should. Turns out I’m a ruthless pragmatist, when push comes to shove… yikes.

Stay Frosty, Punk

Going into Frostpunk 2, I was uncertain how much 11 Bit Studios could really achieve by expanding New London beyond its original vision. I’d toiled with the first, unsure if I could really face the arduous reality of another romp through the frozen, desolate hellscape. I’m pleased to say that my uncertainty was more misplaced than my moral compass turned out to be during my tenure as steward. Frostpunk 2 jettisons the fluff, the guff and the weak, much like how my city – idealistically equal though it was – disposed with those unessential to my goal of survival.

What’s left is a leaner, but broader title that takes huge strides towards a better, bolder future for Frostpunk. The city has grown, in spite of the odds, and while there may been losses and the odd teething problem along the way, it’s all the better for it. Across the board, Frostpunk 2 is the quintessential example of how a sequel should be. The vision has been expanded and everything feels far more fluid and satisfying to play, allowing you to focus on making dubious ethical decisions and preparing for the next near-fatal whiteout.

If like me, you had reservations with the first entry, I’d implore you to try 11 Bit Studios’ second effort. It’s improved in every way and the content offering is expansive, with a far more intuitive structure and wonderful presentation. The frozen remains of Earth may be hazardous, brutal and inevitably extinction-worthy, but in Frostpunk 2, it’s worth steering this new iteration of New London forward, no matter how hopeless the world may seem.

Frostpunk 2 is available now on PC (review platform), PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series S/X.

Developer: 11 Bit Studios
Publisher: 11 Bit Studios

Disclaimer: In order to complete this review, we were provided with a promotional copy of the game. For our full review policy, please go here.

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