The City Will Prevail! – Frostpunk 2 Review
Let’s talk about Frostpunk 2 with an ice-cold game review after getting early access to the game and burying our hours. We’ve been waiting for a new game for a while after the first game’s hair-raising, repeated exile. 11bit Studios mentioned that Frostpunk 2 would be more difficult, but I honestly didn’t expect it to be this difficult.
Let’s move on to Frostpunk 2 review topics!
Frostpunk 2 Review – Story
The game takes place in 1917, 30 years after the 1887 cold snap. People are struggling to find a place to live, trying to survive by finding generators or stoves where they can heat up using coal and oil. Now it’s our turn to keep the survivors alive as they build the city of New London after the ice captured England!
At the start of the game, the old manager of the settlement dies and we, as the new manager, are tasked with keeping the survivors warm and then meeting their basic needs. Maslow’s Theory and the hierarchy of needs immediately comes into play.
The most basic needs and physiological needs of humans such as breathing, food, sleep, healthy metabolism come into play. After a hot generator, you start with basic needs such as food and shelter. Of course, insatiable human beings don’t say, “Oh well, we found a roof over our heads in this frost, at least we are alive.” Then the security needs of work, resources, morality, family, health and property security come into play. In short, Maslow’s pyramid starts working from the bottom up. Our responsibility is to make these people happy. Of course, it is not easy to make everyone happy because we are not beer! 🍻
The first thing I felt while playing the game was the unending desires of human beings and their lack of satisfaction. Even though they trust you when you give them everything they want, after a while they want more and more. The play, which explains the roots of modern society and human beings very well, did not miss this sociological point.
Is It Possible to Make Everyone Happy?
Gameplay is of course one of the most important factors when writing a Frostpunk 2 review. Especially if you play “survival” and “strategy” games, you need an easy gameplay. But does the game achieve this? The answer is both YES and NO!
The Council
First of all, macro management is a bit more advanced compared to the first game. You don’t have to go and manage every single vending machine or manage every tiny little building. With the COUNCIL in the game, you try to pass some decisions from the assembly while trying to balance between the parties. Sometimes you want to pass a decision and the majority of the community is against it. You can convince them with some concessions and promises to pass the decisions.
Fulfilling these concessions and requests can shake the trust of other communities, but the phrase you will feel the most in the game is: “Every choice is a choice to give up!”. You can make some communities happy when you make decisions, while others may be unhappy with that decision. It is very important to strike a good balance.
You have to do a lot of micromanagement in some small jobs while doing macro management. Although the macro – micro management balance in the game is good, it is sometimes tiring.
Resources and Resource Management
Of course, one of the most important things in Frostpunk games is resource management. After all, if we are trying to make people happy. Here we encounter the basic economics concept of “resources are limited and needs are unlimited”. Yes, resources are limited, but people’s needs never end. While meeting these needs, we are also trying to collect resources.
You can find some resources such as Food, Materials, Building Materials, Coal in the area you are in. Of course, in order to find them, you need to break the surrounding ice with Frostbreakers and reach the resources. You can also extract the resources here and use them for your people, but unfortunately these resources run out after a while. For this, you need to build Logistics Facilities and create reconnaissance teams.
You can send scouts outside the city to discover new areas and feed your city with the resources there. Of course, this is not as easy as extracting the resources inside the city. However, as your city and society grows, you need more resources and are forced to explore new places. Unfortunately, it is not possible to survive by taking shelter in a closed area.
Another resource is Construction Materials and Labor. Sometimes you can’t build new construction because you don’t have materials called prefabs. For this, dismantling an existing building can be one of the solutions. Labor is another problem. Sometimes your population is sick, sometimes in mourning, sometimes in rebellion, so it is difficult to find workers. If you don’t have workers, you can’t build new districts, you can’t build new buildings. Always try to keep these resources in a certain balance. You never know when you will need what you need.
Playability and Difficulty
Frostpunk 2 is not a very easy game in terms of playability. When I started the game in the story mode, I felt like everything was coming at me and at the same time I felt like, “What are we doing and where are we doing it from?” Then I slowly got used to it, but there is a learning curve in terms of playability. You can’t get used to it very easily as soon as you enter. It can get a bit complicated with the Council, the Tech Tree, the buildings, the zones, but in this sense, I suggest you give the game and yourself some time because you get used to it after a short while.
Apart from building buildings and learning the keys, you also start to learn the attitudes and trust of the communities. How do I make someone happy, whose trust do I need to earn, and you also figure out the indicators at the bottom of the screen.
As for the difficulty, as I mentioned at the beginning, the game is more difficult than the first game. In fact, when I first started the story mode, I was trying to figure out the gameplay and at the same time I was overwhelmed with the demands of the society. At that time, “Wait, I need to do this, but there’s a problem here! I need to do this but there’s no man left,” I lost the game in the Introduction section that started like a Tutorial. 😁 Then I went back and recovered, but let’s make a note in the pages of history that I lost the game in the Tutorial section. Oh, here I started the game on the lowest difficulty. 😂 This is actually the learning curve I’m talking about. The game can teach you the hard way what you should prioritize, what you should use and how much you should use.
Frostpunk 2 Graphics
The graphics of the game are very impressive and I love it. Especially the heat flowing through the heating and supply lines in the areas gives it a Cyberpunk environment, not Frostpunk. When you look at the generator in the city and its surroundings, you see a suffering city.
It’s not possible to talk too much about the environmental design because everything is covered in ice and snow. Nevertheless, the winds blowing and the white land cover are enough to give you chills even in warm weather.
Apart from these, the faces of the characters who talk to you in the game and the places like the parliament are also very beautiful. When you look closely at the buildings, you can see the workers and automatons working. While you are actually looking at the city from the top, even the movement below creates a living city environment beautifully.
What I can say about the graphic diversity is that the regions and buildings are a bit similar to each other. When you press [ALT] in the game, you can see these zones in different colors, but the similarity of the buildings in the zones makes them quickly indistinguishable.
Still, it’s fun to get a bird’s eye view of the city during those tiny moments when nothing is happening.
Frostpunk 2 Review – Sounds, Music and What We Hear
I think Frostpunk 2 has done a great job in terms of sound and music. Piotr Musiał, who did the music for the previous game and also did the music for Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, has rolled up his sleeves again. The minor symphonic melodies and pessimistic tunes perfectly reflect the atmosphere of the game. It also draws you into the world of survival. Honestly, I couldn’t get enough of listening to the game’s soundtrack.
While you are waiting for the White Storm to pass, this music playing in the background makes you think, “I wonder if I will survive?” I loved it!
As for the sounds, I can say that a very successful job has been done in this area as well. When you are looking at the city from above, an announcement coming from the square tells you what is going on in the city. Sometimes the sounds of machines, sometimes the sounds of people, immerse you into the atmosphere of a living city – or a city trying to survive.
Frostpunk 2 Review Results
After the first game, the team has managed to put a lot more into the game. The success of the first game obviously provided a certain amount of financial resources to make this game deeper and mechanically richer. The team also made good use of the chance to do more in-depth work and spread a little more time and created a new gaming experience.
With the new game, the Frostpunk legend manages to strengthen its name in the gaming world. The post-apocalyptic theme, combined with the glacial cold, created a successful theme, and now, with the innovations in the new game, Frostpunk is riveting its name in the game world.
You can order the game right here! Put on your coat before you start the game, the cold can get you down!