Reviews: Frostpunk
Spoiler free review of the game Frostpunk played on my gaming PC
About the game
Frostpunk is the first society survival game. As the ruler of the last city on Earth, it is your duty to manage both its citizens and infrastructure. What decisions will you make to ensure your society's survival? What will you do when pushed to breaking point? Who will you become in the process?
Margot’s stats
Device: Windows Gaming PC
Difficulty: Easy mode
Completed: yes - main story - New home scenario
Time: ~10 hours
Summary: Frostpunk is a city builder survival game. I haven’t played many of these types of games, but I liked the environmental threat, and the management of Hope vs Discontent of the citizens. It was also really pretty and the music and sound design as great. I had a really nice time escaping into this world.
Score: 8/10 - Recommend
Narrative and Gameplay
The game is set in an alternate history around 1886, where a catastrophic event led to a worldwide winter. In the New Home scenario your citizens left London to try and survive. You find an abandoned generator, around which you can build your new settlement.
I specifically liked this way of building around the generator. In a New Home the goal is to get settled and survive a devastating storm that is coming. Does this count as a spoiler? The game does warn you with plenty of time to attempt to be ready for the storm.
It took me several attempts to understand the game mechanics and the decisions that need to be made (or ignored) in order to keep Hope up while lowering Discontent. This is one of the metrics the player has to manage to stay in power, and it is affected by the decisions you make, and how well you provide for your citizens. Be that housing, facilities, staying warm and food etc.
As the leader you get to implement different laws which might unlock certain structures or ways of helping you control your citizens and their work ethic.
Side note, in 2004 I played a lot of Black and White and I was kind of missing a creature to help the citizens. Maybe they could add a mech?
I found the game very unforgiving. It is hard to backtrack on a decision or when you get something wrong. My concentration was definitely on full focus so I could see how the resources worked out and if people were getting ill not.
You manage several resources for building and researching and to power the generator, these are coal, steel and wood. Then for the people you gather raw food which is then turned into edible food.
Among those I found it tricky to treat people getting ill and nursing them back to health. At its core those are the things to try and find and manage.
In a way, while unforgiving the game is a decent intro to resource management and city builders, as it ramps up bit by bit, and the tutorial notes are great and were super easy to check back agains.
I definitely appreciated having my gaming PC set up for this game. While it would have been possible to play on the steam deck, I found placing the road connections tricky on the PC. This is just a common thing with these types of city builders though. I will always prefer a mouse for these.
Other gameplay mechanics I liked, were the fact you can go and send scouts to explore further and this ability unlocked the wider game for me.
There is also a time control, so you can pause time or make it go faster, which is useful especially in the early game, when you need ton gather resources before being able to build. There is also a difficulty setting, which I always appreciate. I didn’t do too badly on the default setting, but I always appreciate an easy setting. No ego here.
Sound
The soundtrack is very atmospheric and perfect for the scene setting. I also appreciated the cold wind sounds. I actually often thought they were actually outside my house as we were having the odd storm and gusts while I was playing, but they were coming from the game. The howling wind was especially convincing.
The game incorporates a few cue sounds, to let you know you have finished researching a new item, or you can unlock a new law. While the game would often auto pause at these moments as well, it helped me scan the screen to find out what had happened, especially when playing at x3 speed.
Verdict 8/10 - Recommend
I would recommend this game to anyone who wants to try a city builder and isn’t put off by the survival aspects. The general resource management is not overwhelming either in my experience, but it is not a cozy game by any means. You have to be on it, there isn’t much relaxing as there is in cozy games. :)
It has a nice replay-ability to try and unlock all the achievements and design your cities more efficiently. I like that aspect of thinking through how I could build differently knowing what I know now. I thoroughly enjoyed my time so far with Frostpunk und I may try some of the DLC and other scenarios next.
Have you played Frostpunk or Frostpunk 2? Do you have a favourite city builder?
Loved Frostpunk. It's the only city builder/strategy I've ever got into and completed the main campaign. While the game itself is engaging, it was the surrounding context that kept me hooked. The tension in the late game is astonishing, as the mega-storm sweeps through.
I will check out the sequel at some point for sure.
Have you played This War Of Mine by the same devs?
I played the first one, and I’m looking forward to playing the second chapter. I finished the main story, but I remember not feeling like jumping into the other scenarios right away because I found it really intense.
It’s absolutely true what you wrote: every choice carries weight, and the game does everything it can to make you feel the gravity of your decisions. It’s a way of playing that I also found in This War of Mine, also by 11 Bit Studios.