Frostpunk 2 review

Our VerdictNot as satisfying a city builder as the original, but the society simulation is still on point.

Our Verdict

Not as satisfying a city builder as the original, but the society simulation is still on point.

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NEED TO KNOWWhat is it?A city builder and society sim set in a frozen worldExpect to pay: $44.99/£37.99Developer: 11 bit studiosPublisher: 11 bit studiosReviewed on: Intel i7-9700K, RTX 4070 Ti, 16GB RAMSteam Deck: Not VerifiedMultiplayer?NoLink:Official siteCheck Amazon

NEED TO KNOW

What is it?A city builder and society sim set in a frozen worldExpect to pay: $44.99/£37.99Developer: 11 bit studiosPublisher: 11 bit studiosReviewed on: Intel i7-9700K, RTX 4070 Ti, 16GB RAMSteam Deck: Not VerifiedMultiplayer?NoLink:Official siteCheck Amazon

Check Amazon

But before I step out onto the frozen tundra to die despised and alone, I would like to point out that a lot of what went wrong is, from my perspective, entirely your fault. If you could agree on a school curriculum our city wouldn’t have roving gangs of knife-wielding children. If you’d let me harvest dead citizens for spare parts you might have replacements for those eyes you lost due to working double shifts in my horribly squalid factories.

And frankly, if you hadn’t kept sabotaging my efforts to bring new technology to our city I wouldn’t have had to use quite so much new technology—like my merciless mechanized police robots—to brutally punish you. Farewell! I hate you all.

Chilly builder

30 years after the events of the original Frostpunk, the world is still freezing cold and society is still a hot mess.Frostpunk 2is much bigger than the first game—in Frostpunk you finish the campaign with a city of maybe 800 citizens, whereas now you start out with a population 10 times that. This increase in scale isn’t entirely successful: as a city builder, Frostpunk 2 is far more abstract than the original, and I never felt much of a connection to, or interest in, my city as a physical place. As a society management simulation, however, Frostpunk 2 is just as effective as the original. It’s packed wall-to-wall with torturous choices, agonizing consequences, and a sliding scale of morality that’s slippery as ice.

(Image credit: 11 bit studios)

A futuristic city in the snow

Once again you’re in charge of New London, decades after it was founded and built in the original game. The breaking news isn’t great: coal, which has kept the city’s generator burning for 30 years, is dwindling. It’s time to expand the borders and harvest more materials from the frozen ground outside the city, while restlessly searching the distant frigid wastelands for entirely new resources, like oil, to keep your people alive and warm.

My city looks gorgeous, a sprawling network of dieselpunk pipelines, busy roadways, and fume-belching factories, but even at its slowest speed it’s like looking at a city in timelapse, which makes it feel all the more artificial. Even after hours of construction and planning, my city never felt like a place I actually built. You can zoom in on one building per district for a closer look and see a little vignette of citizens at work, but it never feels like you’re peering into a living, breathing place.

(Image credit: 11 bit studios)

A futuristic city in the snow

Still, fine-tuning my districts doesn’t quite capture my interest the way most city builders do when they have a more street-level granularity to their systems. Most of the depth of Frostpunk 2 is reserved for the most challenging element of the city: dealing with the people who live in it.

[Everyone disliked that]

(Image credit: 11 bit studios)

A futuristic city in the snow

Influencing every action you take in Frostpunk 2 are New London’s factions and communities. You begin the game with only two or three factions in your city, but as the months and years pass the choices you make, or don’t make, will give rise to more. During times of unrest or sweeping change, smaller factions may splinter off the main groups, and while they only represent a small percentage of your population, they can still create big problems.

My city’s biggest faction was the Stalwarts: law-and-order fanatics who pretty quickly started suggesting disturbing ideas like “thought control” programs and human experimentation on prisoners—even before I’d built a prison. I also had more moderate groups like the Frostlanders, who had tried (and failed) to establish their own city outside the walls, and New Londoners who were dedicated to keeping the central generator running.

Pilgrims loathe technology so much they want me to shut off the giant generator that’s kept humanity alive for the past 30 years.

But my choice to research and implement new tech saw the rise of a group called Pilgrims, who loathe technology so much they want me to shut off the giant generator that’s kept humanity alive for the past 30 years. Hardcore survivalists called the Icebloods also appeared, extreme badasses who walk around shirtless in the cold and wrestle bears—like, for real, bears—but also think city guards should be immune from prosecution. They worry me. Theyallworry me.

Factions don’t just beef with you but with each other. As the Pilgrims were getting more and more annoyed with my insistence on providing heat to my citizens, they requested that I let a bunch of them leave the city to explore the frozen world outside. That was 100% fine with me—the fewer Pilgrims on my streets, the better, right? But while they were off chanting in the snow (or whatever cold-loving zealots do), the Stalwarts saw their chance to grow in power. They visited the Pilgrims' unattended kids and indoctrinated them into their “youth program.” That made the Pilgrims even more unhappy, and I wasn’t crazy about the idea of the Stalwarts boosting their numbers with brainwashed kids, either.

Frozen gears

(Image credit: 11 bit studios)

A futuristic city in the snow

Compromising with myself was sometimes easier than compromising with factions.

Once I started betraying my own values it was pretty easy to keep on doing it. At first I scoffed at the idea of robot patrols, but then crime went through the roof and passing reasonable laws would have taken far too long and cost me more political capital than I could spend. And there was my city’s biggest and most favorable faction essentially elbowing me and pointing at a button labeled “activate giant robot cops.” Crime went down. That makes it worth it, right?

Cold logic

(Image credit: 11 bit studios)

A futuristic city in the snow

Other choices feel doomed from the start. Mandatory schooling for kids seems logical (especially because if you don’t put kids in school they begin knife-fighting in the streets) but what agenda should be taught? Survival classes on how to endure the cold and kill seals for meat makes sense, but don’t we as a society want to progress beyond mere day-to-day survival?

Well, how about a mixed curriculum, with some time spent on math and science and theoretical tech, and some spent on practical knowledge. Well, no, because while trying to take a balanced approach you’ve instantly made every single faction unhappy. They don’t see it as you giving themsomeof what they want, they see it as youdenyingthemmostof what they want. This is what you’re dealing with in Frostpunk 2. An unreasonable, angry mob that won’t meet you halfway and, quite frankly, deserves to feel the wrath of giant terror-bots at every turn.

(Image credit: 11 bit studios)

A futuristic city in the snow

There are huge benefits to colonization—connect your colonies and main city with trails and skylines and you can ship resources like oil, food, and manpower between them, which saved New London from outright disaster on more than one occasion. The only downside is handling the needs of one city is already a lot, and each colony is like adding another hand grenade to your juggling act. I sent those pesky Pilgrims to go colonize a new location, and they immediately began sabotaging it. God, I hate them. Maybe those thought control programs aren’t a bad idea.

(Image credit: 11 bit studios)

A futuristic city in the snow

Not so shockingly, on more than one occasion my “trust” meter—the constantly shrinking line at the bottom of my screen—went completely dark. Pass enough unpopular laws, break enough promises, run out of food because you were too busy tinkering with a colony instead of minding the shop, and your competing factions will finally agree on something: kicking you out of office and into the snow to die. On the plus side there are lots of ways to start over: in addition to the New London campaign, there’s a sandbox mode with seven different starting locations, different win-states to choose from, and other modifiers to play with.

As a city builder, Frostpunk 2 is a bit of a step down from the original due to the increase in scale, which unfortunately keeps the city at arm’s length. As a society sim, however, it’s every bit as engrossing as the first Frostpunk. Like a tiny snowball rolling down the side of a mountain and eventually becoming an avalanche, even the smallest choices can have major consequences.

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The Verdict85Read our review policyFrostpunk 2Not as satisfying a city builder as the original, but the society simulation is still on point.

The Verdict

85Read our review policyFrostpunk 2Not as satisfying a city builder as the original, but the society simulation is still on point.

85Read our review policy

Frostpunk 2Not as satisfying a city builder as the original, but the society simulation is still on point.

Frostpunk 2

Not as satisfying a city builder as the original, but the society simulation is still on point.

More about frostpunk 2I played a whopping 23 city builders in 2024, and here are my 5 favoritesI’ve lost weekends to crushing dissenters and seals in Frostpunk 2 and that’s why it’s my personal pick for game of the yearLatestHarrowing report alleges years of horrific abuse at Brandoville Studios, an Indonesian support studio that worked on Assassin’s Creed Shadows and The Last of Us RemakeSee more latest►

More about frostpunk 2

I played a whopping 23 city builders in 2024, and here are my 5 favoritesI’ve lost weekends to crushing dissenters and seals in Frostpunk 2 and that’s why it’s my personal pick for game of the year

A city near a waterfall

I played a whopping 23 city builders in 2024, and here are my 5 favorites

Frostpunk 2

I’ve lost weekends to crushing dissenters and seals in Frostpunk 2 and that’s why it’s my personal pick for game of the year

LatestHarrowing report alleges years of horrific abuse at Brandoville Studios, an Indonesian support studio that worked on Assassin’s Creed Shadows and The Last of Us RemakeSee more latest►

Latest

Harrowing report alleges years of horrific abuse at Brandoville Studios, an Indonesian support studio that worked on Assassin’s Creed Shadows and The Last of Us Remake

The dual protagonists of Assassins Creed Shadows stand silhouetted against a setting sun.

Harrowing report alleges years of horrific abuse at Brandoville Studios, an Indonesian support studio that worked on Assassin’s Creed Shadows and The Last of Us Remake

See more latest►

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