Frostpunk, the city-builder game about trying to survive in a landscape almost as cold as mid-February Chicago, is getting a sequel, developer 11 Bit Studios announced in a press release today. It’s called — brace yourself, you’ll never believe this — Frostpunk 2.
Frostpunk 2 is still fairly early in development, so it doesn’t have a release date just yet. The developer said it’s coming to PC — via Steam, Epic, and GOG — but didn’t mention anything about a console release. (Frostpunk initially came out for PC in 2018 and made the leap to PlayStation 4 and Xbox One a year-and-a-half later.) Gameplay details are also scant.
Here’s the first trailer for Frostpunk 2. Note that it’s entire cinematic and doesn’t show a lick of gameplay:
Yes, yes, all this news is couched in a ton of qualifiers. Still, for fans of city-builder games, the mere unveiling of a Frostpunk sequel is exciting! Frostpunk was an exceptionally cool city-builder, and 11 Bit said that Frostpunk 2 will largely follow in its predecessor’s footsteps, though noted that it’ll feature some political mechanics that weren’t present in the first game.
Frostpunk features a confluence of horrors: At the apex of the Industrial Revolution, volcanoes erupt and the sun inexplicably dims, killing millions and ushering in a global ice age. You’re tasked with keeping a small population of survivors alive, meticulously balancing resources like coal, wood, and food. You also have to care for, y’know, human needs. Make people work too hard, and your citizens will grow discontent. If they don’t work enough, you won’t reap enough resources to keep everyone alive.
Whereas popular city-builder games like Cities: Skylines and Surviving Mars allow you to eventually reach a stable resource parity that can sustain sizable populations, Frostpunk does not. At every turn, you’re forced to make difficult choices. And at every turn, you will fail. You’re constantly scrambling. It’s a balancing act on a high-beam that’s too narrow to stand on for long.
In other words, no, Frostpunk ironically has no chill. It’s awesome.
Frostpunk is free on Steam now through 1 p.m. ET on August 16, after which, 11 Bit says, you’ll need to buy the game to keep playing.
Leave a Reply