Frostpunk 2 is the sequel to the freezing cold city-building game Frostpunk released by Polish developer 11 Bit Studios.
Once again, the game is set in a post-apocalyptic Victorian setting, taking place 30 years after the New Home campaign of the first game. While ice storms have ravaged the world and the great storms have left the world freezing in their wake, humanity against all odds has managed to survive. Thanks to the generators, the power of the human bond, and a brave Captain who took charge, the city of New London has remained standing against the freezing cold world.
So…Now what?
With the citizens of the new world no longer content to just survive, the scope of the game has expanded far beyond mere survival. The people want more: More land to utilize, more production to supply the colony, more luxuries to keep them content, and perhaps most damningly, they want to be heard. Frostpunk 2 will challenge The Steward to juggle not just the usual heat, food, and basic luxuries, but also the politics and options of The City, a wide sprawling Metropolis. With every citizen comes a new mouth to feed, a new voice, with new ideas, and the steward will have to pick and choose wisely, lest those who remain unheard start taking more drastic measures to ensure their voice rings out over all…
Frostpunk 2 is set to release on July 25th 2024. A Beta is open to those who pre-order the Deluxe Edition which is planned to open in April. Pre Order the game Here.
Watch the announcement trailer here, the The City Must Not Fall trailer here and the Gameplay trailer here.
Steward, give us our Frostpunk 2 trope examples!:
- Arc Words: "The City Must Not Fall."
- Abandon the Disabled: One law you can sign will only allow those with healthy bodies to enter the colony, which increases the amount of manpower you have, and also slightly increases Heatstamp Gain.
- Crazy Survivalist: The Foragers faction is a downplayed version of this. They believe that in order to survive the cold, humans should rely less on mechanical technology, and more on natural remedies and human muscle. Their radicalized variant; The IceBloods, fit this much closer, as they strongly believe that the cold leaves no margin for error. Therefore weakness cannot be tolerated at any cost, and you must leave your fellow man to die if he fails to survive on his own.
- Decided by One Vote: Frostpunk 2 uses a system of voting to enact new laws. Particularly controversial laws can very well be enacted or struck down based on the whims of a couple of delegates.
- Developer's Foresight: One of the many promises or demands that factions might request is the deconstruction of a building supporting an opposing faction. If you destroy the building to fulfill your promise, then simply rebuild it immediately, the faction you promised will become furious with you, losing a large amount of trust, and losing even more if you don’t make another promise to destroy it properly this time.
- Distant Sequel: Frostpunk 2 takes place 30 years after the great storm, which heralded the end of The New Home main campaign.
- Horrible Housing: Actively discouraged by the Squalor mechanic. Homes placed next to industrial plants and other sources of smog, will increase Squalor, which will increase Tension and Material upkeep, among the people living there.
- Interface Screw: If your Tension meter fills completely, your hud with become consumed with flickering black smoke for a few seconds, before the hud reappears in all black instead of the usual all white, as parts of the screen get covered in Oily smog.
- Loophole Abuse: There is a critical rule in The Council building: There must always be a law or decision to vote on when they meet every ten or so weeks. However, if you have a specific law path in mind, but don’t think you can get the votes quite yet, you can substitute a different idea to vote on, in order to buy you more time to negotiate and earn votes.
- Rage Breaking Point: The main cause of Tension building and Trust falling is being treated unfairly, such as having promises broken and being lied to repeatedly, having their faction’s ideas ignored in favor of other factions, and in general living in lower-class living situations, which results in them taking matters into their own hands, such as rioting, or trying to get you ousted as Steward."Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me thrice, and I cut out this lying tongue of yours."
- Resources Management Gameplay: Once again, you are tasked with keeping your city's stockpiles topped up to keep your people happy and healthy. Like the first game, you'll also need to balance out more esoteric resources, however instead of simply working with "Hope" and "Discontent", you'll need to manage political influence and the opinions of various factions, along with “Trust” and “Tension”.
- Tech Tree: The upgrade tree returns in the new form of the “Idea Tree”, which gives you various solutions to problems, with the specific upgrades determinant on the factions that emerge from your city. Certain upgrades can ONLY be researched if a specific faction grows in your city.
- The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized: Neglect a faction of voices for too long and they’ll eventually become hostile, having the potential to cause damage and chaos to your city with riots and disruptions if their ideas are shot down further. Neglect your people for too long and they’ll eventually call a “Vote Of Confidence” on you, which can cause you to get kicked out of your city.
- Sequel Escalation: Gameplay has shown that the city has gotten much larger since the first game. The City’s population can grow well into the tens of thousands, while New London from first game, assuming the Captain runs the city near perfectly and prioritizes healthcare and saving refugees, usually ends up with 500-600 citizens by the end of the main campaign. Faith and Order have given way to multiple ideologies, and the needs of citizens have grown much more complex.
- What The Hell Steward?: Breaking promises made to the various factions is a very quick way to have them calling for your removal, often with a verbal lashing accompanying it.
- You Lose at Zero Trust: Downplayed in that you don’t lose immediately, but if you reach zero trust, your people will eventually get fed up and issue an ultimatum: Raise trust to Tolerated or higher, or you’ll be kicked out of the city.
