If you’d rather listen to this review than read it, check out this recent podcast episode.
I set out with the intention of limiting comparisons between Frostpunk 2 and the original, which is one of my favourite games. Because a game should be able to stand on its own after all. But that’s not going to happen because it turns out Frostpunk 2’s biggest issue is that it lives in the shadow of its predecessor.
The developers, 11-bit studios, were open from the start that they didn’t want to make a copy of the original, but instead a game that expands upon the world of Frostpunk in new and daring ways. What’s not to love about that? Surely it’s can’t be that different anyway right? Well…
Frostpunk 2 takes place 30 years after the original and is bigger in almost every way. The resilient New London settlement has grown into a thriving metropolis and you, as the steward, are responsible for guiding its tens of thousands of citizens.
With so many people in one place, it’s unsurprising they’ve splintered into factions with different values and ideas about the city’s future. In the council hall, representatives of these factions vote on every law you want to enact in the city, and you need a majority to pass. You can win votes with promises and privileges, but the more you favour one faction, the more discontent grows within the others.
It might seem easier to cater to everyone and strive for balance, but you’ll end up with a stagnant city and no friends to rely on. Eventually you need to choose allies who can back you up when hard choices need to be made. Choose wisely.
This political management is the centerpiece of Frostpunk 2, and 11-bit studios pulled it of incredibly well.
But it’s not all political! What about the survival? What about the city building?!
Here’s where things get complicated for me. 11-bit studios put so much into this game that it can at points detract from the experience.
For example, you no longer worry about individual buildings and individual people, instead you’re building districts and managing entire workforces. This makes sense for a city that’s a lot older and bigger than the first game, but it removed the satisfying sensation of clicking things into place around your city ring. A more genuine issue was that the bigger population, and continuous population growth, made it harder to care about people.
In the first game every time someone got sick or died, there was a direct impact. In this game people got sick by the hundreds, and they were healed in the background while I was trying to de-tangle everything else in the game. And if they did end up dying? Oh well! We’ll recover within a few months. I understand why it’s done like this, and I don’t really know how it could be done differently with such a large scope, but it removed a huge part of the weight from the moral choices Frostpunk usually centres.
While the mechanics don’t quite deliver, Frostpunk 2 does do any amazing job at capturing and improving upon the vibes of the original game. New London is a beautiful looking city with multiple layers dug into the earth. I love the design of the buildings, they look futuristic in the Frostpunk setting, but also grimy and gritty from their decades of use. Also, the soundtrack, by Piotr Musiał, captures the tense, unforgiving, but sometimes hopeful world that New London rests in.
While there are some genuine flaws with this game, a lot of my issues came down to disappointment that it was different than the first. So strangely enough, I think people who haven’t played the first Frostpunk would enjoy this game more than people who have. But I played both and I enjoyed both and honestly I respect what 11-bit studios did. Would it have been easy to churn out a copy of the first game with some different scenarios and slightly tweaked graphics? Yeah. I probably would have bought it too.
But they made a game that feels unique, not just in comparison to its predecessor but to any other city-building games.
