Impressions of playing Frostpunk 2

#Impressions #playing #Frostpunk

When the strategy came out in 2018 Frostpunk from Poland’s 11 bit studios, it quickly became a huge hit. It was able to combine a unique setting in the new ice age at the end of the alternative 19th century, a sophisticated but mechanically simple strategy, survival elements, a very strong atmosphere and story, great music and uncompromising difficulty. It was such an enticing mix that we saw several expansions and the developers started working on a full-fledged continuation. Its full release isn’t until July, but players who pre-ordered the Deluxe Edition have already been able to try the beta version, which includes a sandbox mode (so limited in the beta, but still quite extensive). I tried it myself and can give you my first impressions.

Played on the following PC build:

• Processor: Intel Core i5-13600K
• RAM: 32 GB DDR5 6000 MT/s
• Grafic card: Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 (16 GB VRAM)
• Storage: Solidigm P44 Pro (2TB NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSD)

And how it went on

Frostpunk 2 is set 30 years after the events of the first part. The freezing storm is over and the weather is a bit calmer, although still unpredictable at times. You no longer appear as a captain with absolute power, but a city manager who will take care of the proper running of the city, but must take into account the opinions of the residents. It is the people themselves, given their differing opinions on fundamental issues, that will be the greatest danger to the city.

Right off the bat, it should be said that Frostpunk 2 plays significantly differently than the first, and that’s the main reason why feedback on the beta is somewhat mixed. The developers have been saying this since the beginning, but even I was a bit surprised by the drift rate in the end. I would compare it to Darkest Dungoen 2 for example, the setting and aesthetics remain but the gameplay is very different. I was still excited about the game, but many people may be disappointed by the news. From an accessible survival strategy, it has become a much more complex matter with a focus on politics and economics.

Basically, everything is bigger in the sequel. Time is not measured in hours and minutes, but days and weeks, instead of individual buildings you build mainly city districts, and the storage of as many resources as possible has been replaced by a somewhat flexible economy based on supply and demand. However, the biggest changes took place on the social level, and that is where I would focus first.

Political chess

After all, politics is what I was most looking forward to in Frostpunk 2, and the result perhaps exceeded my expectations. People have divided into two factions, here they are specifically the Foragers, who want to adapt to the new conditions as much as possible, and the Machinists, who desire the greatest possible technological progress. It’s not the only combination by the way, there will be more factions in the full game.

You can still deal with the first two groups, but it gets worse as soon as they start to radicalize. Gradually, two completely different currents are formed: Technocrats, who promote progress, equality and emphasize reason, and a faction called Icebloods, which, on the contrary, promotes adaptation to conditions, wants the highest possible profit and emphasizes traditions. Satisfying both camps is practically impossible due to such drastic differences, but you will have to try, otherwise you risk strikes and protests that can disrupt the operation of key districts. In addition, a deteriorated relationship with factions leads to reduced trust, and if it drops too low, it can lead to your complete banishment from the city.

But you can favor the factions by providing them with heatstamps (a universal rule that you will need for practically everything), committing, for example, to destroying the building of the “enemy” group or researching some technology with their ideas. This is where the two most interesting parts of politics come in. The first one concerns the technology tree, which might seem apolitical from the name, but there is practically no such thing as universal technology in this game. Each idea takes several different forms, depending on the faction. For example, Foragers allow you to explore buildings that usually produce more material, but require more workers and are risky in terms of disease. Machinists, in turn, will offer you buildings with less staff or demands, but often also production and with the fact that they also pollute the air.

The second part is really purely political, and that is the city council, where elected representatives of the people, who thus come from the already mentioned factions, meet. While in the first part you decided on all the laws, here you have to let the representatives vote on quite key things: how foreigners will be treated, what will happen to small children, what life insurance people will have and many other things.

Consensus is usually very small, so most laws only pass by a narrow majority (at least 51 votes out of 100 are needed). If you really need a law to pass and you don’t want to leave anything to chance (the opinion of the radical factions is usually firm, but not for the rest), you can negotiate with the groups and offer them something in return for the vote you want.

Representatives can also be pressured and basically forced into a certain vote, but this will of course reduce people’s trust in you. But there will probably be some possibility of absolute power, because in the currently locked part of the law tree, which will only be in the full version, there were options such as propaganda, martial law, secret police, state of emergency, the ability to veto laws or even establish the administrator’s personal militia. I’m honestly very curious to see what it will look like if you go that route.

Other strengths

Also, the economy, at least for the most part, worked very well. Maintaining a balance between supply and demand is a challenging but not impossible task. A key role is played by building, which is more reminiscent of, for example, the SimCity series than the first Frostpunk. You have to work smartly with the bonuses for neighboring districts, gradually expanding them and building special buildings. Raw materials cannot be stored very well, so it is important to maintain a stable supply, especially coal, on which the generator depends.

The survival elements have receded a bit compared to the first part, but they are definitely not missing. You have to make sure that the inhabitants are not cold, that they are not hungry, that the air is not too polluted and that diseases do not spread too much. At least the last two aspects often increase you some buildings, so this needs to be balanced by building purification towers and hospitals.

By the way, there is also an exploration of the surrounding locations, where you find out what has happened to the landscape, you can get raw materials once, or even build a station for stable supplies. The system here is a bit more complex than in the first one, but it seems to me that it lacks a bit of atmosphere, and that can be said about the whole game so far.

Surprising flaws

The fact that I could only try the sandbox and the strength of Frostpunk has always been in the story, which was completely absent here, while the full game will of course have a story mode, will probably have a big influence on this. Even so, I can’t shake the feeling that the atmosphere was not as strong as I would have imagined. The music is great again, but it feels like the game is missing a lot of the sounds we’ve already come to associate with Frostpunk. In the same way, the voices of people are practically completely missing, although we heard them in the earlier trailer, so I hope that we will see them in the full version.

Otherwise, I had minor problems with the balance, mainly regarding the universal currency, which you can run out of very quickly and without it you are completely loaded. In the same way, in my opinion, some technologies are not completely well balanced, where the ones from the Foragers faction were mostly much better, although I did not agree with them at all.

I see the biggest problem, and probably more people will agree on this, in the user interface anyway. The text is often too small, some windows are not very clear (for example, I only realized after about an hour of playing that the technology tree has several parts) and the white UI on white snow is simply not quite ideal. I would really appreciate a dark background option.

Finally, I would like to add some information regarding the technical side. The game runs on Unreal Engine 5 and looks really nice from a visual point of view, especially when it comes to the various effects, but it took its toll. In order to run the game at a stable 60 FPS in 4K on the RTX 4080, I had to reduce the graphics settings to High and upscaling to Balanced. I wouldn’t have such a problem with that, but unfortunately only FSR is available in the beta, which produces shimmering in motion, and TSR, which in turn has significantly lower performance. Fortunately, the developers have confirmed that DLSS and XeSS will not be missing in the full version. The frame rate held up anyway, and even though there was typical Unreal Engine stuttering, it wasn’t anything completely terrible. After all, it doesn’t even play a big role in strategy.

A bold sequel

Overall, I have very positive impressions of Frostpunk 2. The game is even more different from the first game than I expected, but it’s not bad at all, the news is very imaginative and fun, especially the political aspect. But it won’t be for everyone, so it’s no wonder that many fans of the number one are disappointed with the beta. In short, this is no longer the accessible strategy, but something much more complex. However, the world and aesthetics have not been lost, and I am very much looking forward to returning to the frosty world again in July, this time in the full version.

Frostpunk 2 comes out on July 25th, so far only on PCversion for PlayStation 5 a Xbox Series X|S will arrive later. The game will be available on Game Pass from the day of release.