Frostpunk 2 Review: The Frozen London Saga Continues

The brutal, harsh, cold, and unforgiving world of Frostpunk returns in the sequel with citizens, politics, and the dividing factions within a colony playing a much bigger role. Frostpunk 2 gives you a world so empty that even if you are within your colony, you cannot rely on the people as every man is for himself. In this Frostpunk 2 review, I have broken down the good, the bad, and the best parts you can expect from the game.

The Resource Gathering Returns

The resource gathering from various deposits and making one resource by burning another was one of the major highlights of the original Frostpunk. This feature has returned in Frostpunk albeit with a little twist.

You no longer have individual buildings to set up over deposits for extraction. Instead, the buildings are bundled up into district types with a defined role for them to perform.

You have Housing, Industrial, Extraction, Food, and Logistics Districts each performing tasks bound to their names. While Housing, Food, and Extraction Districts perform the basic tasks of providing shelter, giving something to eat, and collecting resources from deposits, the Industrial and Logistics may need a little explaining.

You now have Goods and Materials, two of the most important resources to keep an eye out for in Frostpunk 2 to keep the citizens happy. The Industrial districts provide Goods or Prefabs by using Materials collected from Extraction Districts.

If you fail to meet the demand for Goods and Materials, the Squalor and Crime will rise and you will be thrown out of the colony if this persists for a long time.

While on the surface the resource gathering may seem like the first game, it is no longer exactly the same in Frostpunk 2.

Specialized Buildings Are Double-Edged Swords

While each of the five Districts has a fixed duty to perform, there are specialized buildings you can construct inside these Districts to speed up a process and keep citizens happy or increase Tension and reduce Trust.

Specialized buildings are double-edged swords that on one side give you what you want from that building but on the other side raise Squalor or Crime and in the worst cases reduce Trust.

Buildings like Mechanisd Sawmills, Dust Coal Mines, Mechanical Factories, Chemical Hothouses, and others are designed to speed up the production of crucial resources but they also cause a wide variety of problems that result in conflicts of interests between the factions.

But who wouldn’t get uncomfortable with the idea of Chemical Hothouses injecting chemical nutrients into the crops for accelerated growth? I know I would. Then again, this is you who needs to do what it takes to increase the survival of your colony in the unforgiving weather that freezes your blood and chills your bones until they break.

Factions, Choices & Repercussions

Each faction has a voice, stance, style, and a peculiar way of how things should unfold in the colony. By default, you get three or four factions as you play the story mode. However, sometimes the laws you pass, the tough choices you make, and the priorities you set towards a faction force citizens to withdraw their original belief and form a new opinion.

This creates a rift and you constantly juggle between passing laws that favor one faction and researching new ideas that align with the beliefs of another.

For example, the Pilgrims have an excellent knowledge of Frostland and always push the stance of adapting and embracing the frost. On the other hand, the New Londoners push for technological progress and automation and rely more on machines than people.

While your decisions may not be favorable to all factions, there are still some ways where you can keep everyone happy. You get options like ‘Fund Projects’, ‘Make Promise’, ‘Grant Agenda’, and sometimes publicly announcing your support for a faction. This reduces the divide between the people of your colony and helps them avoid cutting each other’s throats.

Council Hall, the Beating Heart of Politics in Your Colony

The Council Hall is the place where each faction presents their beliefs to the table, and pushes to pass a certain research that aligns with their belief system. In every law you pass or reject, a certain level of politics is involved that allows you to see the outcomes beforehand so you can make an informed decision.

For example, a certain faction will push for the idea of sending the younger population to schools so they can study, contribute to research, and reduce the Crime rate. While this is definitely a good suggestion, another faction demands that the colony needs as many hands on deck as possible and an apprenticeship is a better way to control the younger population.

While both ideas seem sound and favorable to the colony, the direction you take will solidify your narrative for each faction. At least one faction will get the most out of a law being passed while others will show resentment over it, decreasing Trust in their ‘Steward’.

While you gain a positive image most of the time you pass a law, sometimes you need to negotiate with the delegates of other factions, make promises, and bring them on the same page as you to reject a certain law. This helps you align yourself with the belief system of a certain faction while not tainting your image with the other faction for rejecting their law.

Heat Management, the Elephant in the Room

While 11 bit Studios have created a beautiful yet brutal world of Frostpunk 2 that will keep you distracted in factions, resource gathering, and politics the Heat management is the elephant in the room and you should start taking this seriously from the get-go.

Even if you have managed to keep people happy with your charm, and politics and provided them with every resource they need, you will still fail in becoming their ‘Steward’ if you cannot maintain the Heat levels, especially during the Whiteout.

‘Whiteout’ is the curse word that every citizen in your colony knows and feels the chills just by thinking about it. In Frostpunk 2, the whiteout is a series of events that lasts a few weeks where you will be bombarded the extreme cold weather possible.

Coal and Oil are the best sources to generate heat and keep your citizens warm during lower temperatures. While these are known methods that can give you a decent supply of heat for a long time, sometimes you need to look for other resources too such as Geothermal Plants, and be prepared for the worst.

In any case, you must always be prepared and have enough Oil or Coal surplus so that you can meet the demand. Heat demand increases significantly during lower temperatures and relaxes during higher temperatures.

I have wiped at least 10 runs of story mode by overseeing the Heat management in Frostpunk 2 and learned the lesson the hard way. So don’t make the same mistake as I did.

The Only Bad

I got to play the pre-release copy of Frostpunk 2 and played it for more than 25 hours. During my time I saw multiple scenarios unfold in the story mode where sometimes you completely abandon Winterhome and search for other ideas for survival and in others you try to take the resources from Winterhome or clear toxins from the place to make it inhabitable.

I could never win against the Whiteouts in any of the scenarios I played in Frostpunk 2. The game feels harder than the original title, and I believe this could potentially frustrate a lot of players, especially the newcomers.

Returning players may love the extra challenge in Frostpunk 2 but then again I played the original title on Survivor mode, the hardest difficulty, and still managed to complete it. For some reason, the difficult spike in the sequel is tough to handle and that is the only downside I have found in the game so far.

Verdict

As a player coming from the original Frostpunk, I had a soft corner for Frostpunk 2 and I knew in my instincts that 11 bit Studios would deliver another successful game. However, I am 100 percent satisfied with the level of effort, energy, and love the studio has put into making this game.

Frostpunk 2 is easily one of the best Simulation and Strategy genre video games that stands at a 9/10 score for me.

This was my review for the Frostpunk 2 and I believe you get the complete picture now and understand at some level what to expect from the game.

If you’re starting the game, I recommend reading up on our Frostpunk 2 guides to get more materials and more goods. There are also guides on reducing Squalor and Crime fast.