Frostpunk 2 Review - Balance Resources Or The City Will Burn

If you're a masochistic gamer chances are you were one of the many lovers of the dystopic hellscape that was Frostpunk when it was released in 2018. Now in 2024 Frostpunk 2 is going to test your ability to juggle weather, resources, and the respect of your people. With grander ambitions and a slightly scaled-up viewpoint, how well does Frostpunk 2 adapt while staying true to its frozen roots?

Frostpunk 2 picks up the story 30 years after the events of the original game, the Captain has passed and so now the player takes up the mantle of the Steward whose job isn't just to survive the Frostlands but to expand humanity by seeking out new settlements.

Starting the game the first immediate change players will notice is that the level of scale is far higher than it was starting out in Frostpunk. You're no longer dealing with groups of 10-15 people, assigning them different facilities and tasks, but with groups of hundreds.

This increase in scale is persistent across everything. Whether it's the buildings you create, expeditions you send out into the world, or resources you gather all are on a larger scale.

A major change is that you can't see individual characters walking around, the downside is that it removes some of that personal touch, but a big positive for me is that I don't feel as bad knowing that individual people are dying. At a larger scale, it seems more 'video gamey'.

Frostpunk 2 from the outset makes you understand that while you're still stuck in a hellish frozen landscape, that there's still a lot to be worried about but that it's not just about re-establishing society but an evolution.

Watch Your Resources

There is an overarching story to Frostpunk where you set up your bases and further the plight of humanity (while ensuring it doesn't collapse in on itself), but the core of the gameplay is in how well you balance your resources.

As your population grows and you want to be doing more exploring and developing you'll need to be managing your Heatstamps, a currency in-game, and raw materials like prefabs and cores. A larger population demands more of the city. You need to build housing districts, be able to feed them, and offer enough materials and goods that they aren't living a poor existence.

It's also not just the manpower and physical resources that you need to contend with as the very first law that gets passed is whether you're even worthy of running the place. You'll start with factions like the Stalwarts and Frostlanders but as your society grows you'll see new factions introducing themselves. There's absolutely no pleasing them all as you'll find yourself trying to balance what you can, even if some are left out in the cold.

Balancing resources is a tough game, especially in the beginning, there are more than a few decisions where you'll be forced into a choice knowing it's going to hinder production or resource gathering elsewhere. It feels like you're consistently panicking and just having to fix whatever leak of resources you can as soon as possible.

Later on in my game, once I'd had a chance to really be building up resources, these dire decisions came less and less frequently. I did somewhat miss the stress of trying to figure out where my next important resource would come from, but I did get an immense sense of pride knowing that I was totally handling the frozen apocalypse.

You'll end up balancing the progress of laws, the progress of research, and the progress of exploring the Frostlands. One of the biggest learning curves for me playing was keeping track of all of the very subtle indicators around the screen. There's no large fanfare when you can vote again, nor a flashing indicator that the Frostland Teams have found something, it will be seen when you notice it.

Exploring The Vast World of Frostpunk 2

Early on you'll craft Logistics Districts that let you go out into the world in search of new resources and other global events. You might come across events with other communities, resource deposits, or even new places to create settlements.

Once I had expanded into my second settlement I was afraid that it was going to become a crazy game of balancing, trying to make sure I was paying enough attention to both, but once my second settlement became even slightly sustainable it continued to progress without issue.

The Consequences Of Your Own Actions

While the weather of the Story mode has a set path of events – when it will get colder, warmer, or when a Whiteout will occur – the biggest change you'll experience will be from the different factions of the city.

How you research new buildings, vote laws into place, and the steps you take to please or displease residents will constantly keep the way these factions see you fluctuating. Trying to keep everyone happy was also an incredibly stressful portion of the game.

These factions always ensured that there was more in play than just me selecting what research and laws I wanted to put in place myself, and that I might have had to create a law I wasn't a fan of if it meant that these other factions stayed in a place of liking me.

Utopia Mode Lets You Play Again And Again

Gameplay doesn't end with the conclusion of the story as Frostpunk 2 has an 'endless' mode called Utopia.

There are 7 different locations for you to pick from each with their own sets of pros and cons to really test yourself. The Windswept Peaks might have a medium area, but resources and frostland are randomized, the Broken Shore gives access to forests and oil but not iron, the Crater is a large area with starting resources but limited Coal.

Music Adds To Tension

Throughout the whole experience, the background music did an incredible job accentuating the tension of the moment or triumphantly congratulating you as you made a new positive step towards a warmer future.

For the majority of the game, the music felt subdued, there but under the surface, when it did swell it was a big indicator that something was about to happen. Even if I was progressing through the game pretty positively, the soundtrack would constantly reinforce the stress that the city was experiencing.

Frostpunk 2 Review | Final Thoughts

I was very nervous coming into Frostpunk 2, it's not normally my kind of game and I was dreading the sheer number of resources needed to be balanced. While the first few hours were exactly that, stress and resource balancing, as I played and built up my city to my liking I really enjoyed my time.

By the middle of the game, as I was exploring all regions and working with a relatively happy city, I was really proud of my accomplishments. I had taken on each new mechanic and a wider scope of settlements throughout the frozen wasteland and wasn't just surviving but thriving.

Unfortunately, due to technical issues that feeling of riding high didn't last for very long as my final experience of the game wasn't one of great success or triumph but that I personally survived and reached the finishing line.

Fans of Frostpunk will likely enjoy Frostpunk 2 as it takes familiar elements and builds upon them, showing narrative growth as well as mechanical challenges.

Frostpunk 2 was reviewed on PC with a copy provided by the publisher over the course of around 10 hours of gameplay - all screenshots were taken during the process of review.