Frostpunk 2 review: House of Cards on ice

11 bit Studios delivers an excellent follow-up to its survival city-builder

11 bit Studios

Sometimes the memes speak the truth: Some children yearn for the mines. And who’s going to say ‘No’ to a bunch of volunteers for the vital coal mines, without which the fledgling city freezes to death? Of course, that decision has consequences – grave consequences. A fire in the mine breaks out, the flames threatening to consume the entire vein, and with it, all chances of survival. Unless you make the tough choice of sealing off the affected area, dooming everyone within to die for the greater good – and it just so happens that about a hundred of those child workers are currently in that part of the mine.

If you thought Frostpunk 2 would present you with fewer choices that make you feel like a human monster, you’re wrong – in fact, the sequel burdens you with a lot more responsibility than you had in the original, making the dilemmas you face all the more difficult to stomach.

It’s not like those decisions and their consequences are simply presented in numbers – making that choice has preserved that precious coal vein, reduced your manpower, and decreased the total demand for shelter, food, and goods, but the game is very good at throwing the human cost of your choices into your face.

After I sacrifice the child volunteers, an event pops up that tells me the story of George Fairweather, a 17-year-old who’s been maimed by an accident in the past. He tells me that he’s been taken care of by his wonderful younger sister, a 13-year-old working several jobs to keep both of them alive – my choice to save that coal mine killed her and may also have doomed poor George to a freezing, early grave.

Sacrificing children in the mines? We are so back. / 11 bit Studios

“But what else was I supposed to do?” is a common reaction Frostpunk 2 will elicit, just like its predecessor. While the lowest difficulty setting may give you some wiggle room to be generous and make a choice that’s more morally right than rational, anything above that will make you regret being led on by emotion. This game is as hard and unforgiving as the ice it has us survive in, and that’s still very much at the heart of the game.

What’s changed is the scale of this survival effort. You are no longer in charge of one fledgling band of survivors – you are now responsible for the lives of thousands of people. You build an entire city district with one command now. You can send hundreds to die with one decision.

While the sequel has lost none of the original’s (frost)bite – and, as mentioned, the change of scale really adds weight to the burden you carry – it has less of the intimacy that ensued from your settlement being huddled together around the generator, its sole source of warmth and life. It retains that dread and intensity, that challenge people love about the first game, but it doesn’t quite feel as personal.

A lot of the city-building is fairly standard for the genre and geared towards good planning and being efficient with the space you’re given, especially once your city gets larger. Some of your expansions will be dictated by the placement of resource deposits, such as fertile ground, oil, frozen forests, and so on. Terrain, too, plays a role: Crevasses protected from wind are great spots for housing districts, for example, because the location will help preserve some heat.

The scale is a lot grander than you may remember. / 11 bit Studios

Placing certain districts close to each other offers synergies like increased efficiency or heat preservation, while other combos are punishing. Placing an extraction district next to food production increases the risk of disease, for example. It’s important to keep all of that in mind while expanding your city, as planning ahead will save you resources in the long run.

In Frostpunk 2, however, you will not only be restricted to building one settlement. You will also look outwards in search for additional resources and can place outposts at certain locations – such as oil depots. You can then connect your settlements to each other through rails, allowing you to transport people and goods between. This is a vital and pivotal step for your town and it will lead to debate among your people. Yes, debate.

Frostpunk 2’s biggest change compared to its predecessor is that you are no longer a leader with omnipotent powers, who can decide things unchallenged and unquestioned. Populations have become large enough to be divided along certain fractal lines, just like in real life. Some groups will favor technological progress, others will embrace traditions, some are striving for equality, others believe in a system of merit, and so on.

All of these groups will form political factions and if you want to pass laws in your city, then a council representing all of these interests must vote on them. Here’s where the game gets a completely different dark twist, which can deliver as much of a gut punch as those decisions we’ve already talked about. While you can hope that enough delegates see the sense of your proposals, sometimes it will become obvious that you need to negotiate and make a deal.

Each faction comes with its own beliefs and goals. / 11 bit Studios

You can go to a faction and ask them to support the law you proposed, but they’ll want to get something in return – that you propose a law they favor, construct certain buildings, or order certain ideas to be researched.

Most of the decisions you make in this game will make some factions trust you more while eroding the faith of others. You can play the grand statesman and reach across the aisle, or openly favor certain groups, either because it's convenient or you genuinely share their ideas.

But that’s a slippery slope – see, the more you give one faction and exclude another, the more radical they both become, though for different reasons, and you’ll reach a point where you’re almost locked in with one group, because the city would come to a standstill if you suddenly wanted to work with the other factions. Those supportive rallies the faction you’ve been favoring has been throwing in some housing districts, which so kindly help you raise additional revenue, may then swing into becoming violent protests instead.

As they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions – and so is the one leading to fascism. I’d been working with a group of progress- and science-oriented people over the traditionalists in my settlement, because I found myself leaning towards their proposals more on a personal and practical level, but then they started using their position to surveil and oppress other groups.

It's all quid pro quo over here. / 11 bit Studios

In Germany, the intricacies of how fascists rise to power are taught in schools with emphasis for obvious reasons, and I very much saw myself reminded of those lessons when playing – and the realization set in: All of my decisions have led me onto this path towards a fascist society, one in which technology and concepts like merit are not only used for good. But it was too late to stop – the only question now was, would I become a mere enabler or would I put myself at the head of this movement?

See, while you don’t start off as an all-powerful leader, you can play this political game for your own benefits and attain such a position – the factions themselves aren’t the only ones that can radicalize. There are laws you can push through that will allow you to violently disperse protest, greatly influence the council’s voting process, and – eventually – assume a dictatorship through martial law. And here’s another twist, then: How you use this power is up to you. I could ride that quasi-fascist wave I allowed to take hold on my city and have it make me a strongman ruler – and then I could betray it and use my powers as a benevolent dictator.

And, frankly, with factions sometimes demanding absolutely stupid laws to be instituted – no, we are not repealing the law that keeps our food supply positive, you bloody fools – dictatorship does sound appealing sometimes.

All of this is happening among the eternal ice, under the intense pressure of having to supply the city and its growing population with enough heat, food, and goods to survive. This society-sim aspect is truly what makes Frostpunk 2 unique and sets it apart from the original game – and it’s very well executed for the most part, even if some of the choices do feel a little over the top and too extreme at some points, making factions upset with you because you don’t subscribe to cartoon villain-type plans.

It's not just one city that mustn't fall anymore. / 11 bit Studios

Where that whole aspect falters a little bit is in the resolution of the social conflict in the late game – for example, you can simply round up all the radicals and essentially create a penal colony for them or have them under house arrest in isolated districts, and that’s that. Couldn’t I have done that before some terrorists took and killed hundreds of hostages? Couldn’t I have saved myself the headache of negotiating with extremists for vital laws? The game could maybe do with a few more tools to interact with and influence the different factions.

Frostpunk 2 is presented in an elegant style with a sleek user interface and somehow manages to top the original’s exceptional atmosphere (aside from the aforementioned intimacy) with its music and visuals. It could do better about notifying the player of events happening. Since you may have to manage several towns at the same time, only relying on the visual indicators popping up above districts is simply not enough – you’ll miss stuff and be punished for making decisions without getting crucial information and that’s a gut punch of the less enjoyable kind. A few bugs with the UI here and there must be noted as well, though I imagine those won’t be in the game for long.

Ultimately, Frostpunk 2 is something very rare: A sequel that manages to substantially reinvent itself and innovate on the foundation of its predecessor without losing what made it great in the first place – in itself, this boldness is deserving of applause.

Score: 8/10

Version tested: PC (Steam).