Frostpunk 2 is a significant improvement over the original, genre-breaking, game that we were all surprised by in 2018. It’s bigger, harder, and prettier than the first game in every way.
For the first few days, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I was planning my next moves in bed, trying to figure out what went wrong in the last playthrough, writing stuff down on notepads.
I haven’t felt like this playing a video game in a long time. And that statement alone is enough for you to figure out whether Frostpunk 2 is worth playing.
But if you really need me to spell it out for you, then YES! Frostpunk 2 is one of the best and most unique city-building survival games I’ve played and it’s definitely worth playing.
Keep reading if you want to know more about the game.
Brutal Game Difficulty, In A Good Way
There is no Easy difficulty in Frostpunk 2. The game starts you off in what feels like Medium difficult and even that feels quite difficult.
It took me two failed attempts just to advance from the Prologue in the story campaign.
The Frostpunk 2 campaign is divided into multiple chapters and with each chapter, you face new challenges.
The Prologue, which acts as a short tutorial, teaches you how things work in Frostpunk 2.
Coming from playing a lot of Frostpunk, I thought I wouldn’t need to go through the tutorial. But I was wrong.
Frostpunk 2 is almost entirely a new game. While it maintains the core story, concept, and survival elements from the original game, the sequel takes a different approach to the gameplay elements. I will get more into that later.
This is what made me appreciate the developers even more. They could have just reused the same gameplay elements from the first game, upgraded the graphics, and called it a sequel. But they went above and beyond.
11 Bit Studios has always been very innovative in making their games quite unique. And they have kept that habit in this game as well. For that, I have the utmost respect for this indie studio.
New Gameplay Elements
Just as in the original game, resource management is key to surviving the cold in Frostpunk 2. And as usual, you have to make some tough decisions to survive the frostlands. The rest of the game, however, feels quite new and different but in a good way.
In Frostpunk 2, everything is bigger. Instead of establishing buildings, you build “districts”. You mine coal by building Extraction Districts, generating food using Food Districts, and so on.
It’s within these districts you can setup more advanced buildings like turning a coal mine into a Dust Coal Mine.
You can’t just go and build these Districts anywhere on the map either. You first need to clear out the snow and ice to make a path towards these extraction nodes. This is called “Frost Breaking”, which also requires manpower.
And that’s just one example of the complex layered gameplay elements available in Frostpunk 2.
Additionally, there’s a brand new skill tree available in Frostpunk 2 with multiple categories for you to keep track of. And as before, you can also pass laws to maintain order. This new Law system, however, is different from the first game.
Unlike in the first game, there’s politics in Frostpunk 2. In order to pass laws and maintain order, you need to maintain good relations with different factions of the game. This means sometimes making decisions in favor of one faction over the other or even funding their projects.
To pass a Law, you need the majority of the votes. And if you continue to fail to win votes, the factions will kick you out of leadership.
Exploring Beyond the City
In the first game, exploration was limited to a static screen where you have very limited interactions. There were only a few actions available to find resources and people beyond the borders of the city.
In Frostpunk 2, you experience a much larger sense of exploration that goes well beyond the main city you live in. You can have teams explore different sectors to rescue people and find additional resources as well as build mines and extraction sites to continuously generate resources.
Building Colonies
When you’re exploring beyond the city, you will discover old derelict Dreadnaughts, which you can revive to build new colonies by sending people from your cities over to these new locations.
This is another new and exciting element of Frostpunk 2. This adds an additional layer to your resource management and survival. Now you need to transfer resources between the colonies and cities to maintain their survivability.
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg of this wonderfully complex and brutally difficult game.
Graphics, Gameplay, & Overall Experience
From the very beginning of the game, I was impressed by how smoothly Frostpunk 2 ran. The game performed smoothly on high settings on my i5, RTX 4060, 32GB RAM PC. It goes to show how a game can be well-optimized when developers plan ahead and take their time to deliver a finished game rather than a work-in-progress.
I was also stunned by the graphics in Frostpunk 2. Not being able to zoom in enough was one of the downsides I experienced in the first game. Thankfully, in Frostpunk 2, you can zoom in much closer to get a good look at your city. And it’s gorgeous!
The color combinations of Frostpunk 2 simply pop in the icy snow background, without making it overly colorful or breaking the apocalyptic aesthetic. It just makes a stunning visual to stare at.
Is It Worth Playing?
I was pleasantly surprised by Frostpunk 2 in every way. I don’t say this often but it deserves a Game of the Year nomination, at least.
If you enjoy city-building games with a twist and survival elements, Frostpunk 2 is definitely worth playing. But don’t be fooled by the nice visuals and impressive gameplay elements. This game is very difficult. You will fail multiple times and each time you will learn something new and try again. And that’s how you progress in Frostpunk games.
If you’re completely new to survival city building, I would recommend you to start with the first Frostpunk game. It’s super cheap and has tons of gameplay/replay value. It will help you understand the basics of this universe a bit more before getting into the advanced mechanics.
Either way, don’t miss out on this game. Among today’s misleading and disappointing quadruple-A releases, Frostpunk 2 is a masterpiece that needs to be played.
Disclaimer: I received a review key for this game from Evolve PR and I was able to play it in advance before the release. However, the review is not sponsored or in any way influenced by the developers or the publishers of the game.