Featured image: GodisaGeek.com
days
hours minutes seconds
until
Frostpunk 2 Release Date
11 Bit Studios is expanding the Frostpunk series with a sequel to their 2018 hit: Frostpunk 2 is set to release on 21 September 2024.
With a fairly steep price of $65.95 (AUD) for the base game, let’s hope it meets the high expectations set by the first Frostpunk.
So, what is Frostpunk?
Frostpunk is a steampunk, city-building, management game set in a post-apocalyptic world where a new ice age has enveloped Earth, leaving an icy tundra in its midst.
The endless winter have left civilisations scattered or destroyed and only few lucky colonies that were close to specialised heating systems could survive.
Acting as the leader of a colony, you’re tasked to help your followers survive by building housing and farming infrastructure, sending out expeditions and improving the societal aspects through the Book of Laws; whether you lead by prosperity or control is your decision.
The first Frostpunk is currently 90% off its original $43.95 (AUD) price on Steam, costing only $4.39 (AUD), so be sure to grab this great deal if you haven’t already!
Source: thegoodthebadtheinsulting.blogspot.com
What’s new with Frostpunk 2?
City Building
The sequel brings various brand-new features to its city-building infrastructure. The initial game already had a robust arrangement of buildings and upgrades; however, the sequel aims to expand further into creating and maintaining actual cities.
Districts, street names, council halls, and institutions are some of the new buildings available to players, allowing you, as the leader, to run a living city while managing numerous dynamics at play.
Colonies are also a new aspect of the game. Whereas the first Frostpunk had scouting missions and small bases of operations near critical resources, they were pretty minor, autonomous ways to bolster resource intake.
The sequel aims to flesh out these colonies and incorporate them into the central city, serving as actual, living colonies rather than the “set and forget” scouts of the first game.
Govern your people like never before!
Communities and Factions are sprawling in and out of your city, and it’ll be your job to manage them. If the first game is any indication, you can choose to be peaceful or forceful based on your playstyle.
To evolve and grow your city, you must manage each faction strategically to ensure prosperity while maintaining amicable relationships between your citizens, the factions and whatever else is out there.
The Council Hall building acts as the central hub for all things bureaucratic, where you’ll be tasked with balancing the needs of your followers, the demands of the factions, and the city’s evolution, all while maintaining your governance over the population. The discontent feature returns, keeping you on your toes to maintain order.
The Story
Set 30 years after the first game, we can expect an extensive storyline and expansion to the Frostpunk lore with this new iteration.
Is this set in our original city in the first game?
Will old rivals return?
What other civilisations exist that we can work with (or destroy)? I guess we’ll see.
Source: IGN.com
With the addition of factions to Frostpunk 2, we can expect to see a diverse range of branching storylines based on who we favour the most.
It would be nice to see some variability to the endings and not a linear end point. This could be based on the choices we make, factions we side with or destroy, and the laws we instill. Each of these could culminate into an expansive array of endings that may then lead into potential DLC storylines.
These potentially branching endings and pathways give the players a fair amount of replayability, long after finishing the main story.
Mod Support
An interesting new feature outlined on the Steam page is the addition of mod support through ‘FrostKit’, a modding tool kit. It will be exciting to see what additions the player base can add, such as new buildings, factions, maps or story events.
The first Frostpunk’s mods were fairly lacking, limited mostly to cheat files, balancing mods or additional save files; hopefully, with the addition of FrostKit, players will have more versatility in their modding creations.
A key feature I’d like to see is a ‘hardcore’ mode, where players are unable to pause the game and only have a limited number of saves, and once you reach a game over you need to start again. This will add a good amount of challenge for the serious Frostpunk players.
While you wait
Frostpunk 2 is only a few days away before its release (even sooner if you’ve pre-purchased the Deluxe Edition), so here’s some of my suggestions for similar games to bide you over while you wait:
| Game | Price (AUD) |
|---|---|
| Manor Lords – a medieval colony sim | 59.95 |
| Surviving Mars – a colony management sim on Mars | 42.95 |
| Fabledom – a relaxed, fairytail city builder | 31.05 |
| Station to Station – a railway building management game | 26.50 |
| Islanders – a minimalist city builder | 8.50 |
What's Yappening? 
You must be logged in to post a comment.