Released six years ago, the post-apocalyptic city-building simulator with survival elements Frostpunk, set in an alternate history with a steampunk touch, set a high bar for quality. The project was not very large-scale, but it had unexpected plot twists, random events and enjoyable gameplay, which brought it considerable popularity. Frostpunk 2, which was released on September 17, tried not to lose face in front of its predecessor. Whether she succeeded or not, you will find out in this review.
Frostpunk 2 continues the plot of the first part, and if there we played the role of the Captain who led the people of New London, then here we are the Viceroy, chosen among the people. As the latter, we are allowed to manage the construction of various areas, the research of technologies, the choice of where to send expeditions and, most importantly, to conduct politics.
There is a lot of emphasis on politics in the game. The deceased captain left a legacy of the beginnings of democracy, with several factions, such as the New Londoners and others, engaged in a bitter struggle for power. Each has its own postulates and they can be accepted to determine the development of the city and elevate one or another faction. For example, the previously named New Londoners are all for studying technology and passing laws, which are not distinguished by signs of humanism and so on.
Factions at the beginning of each game are not fixed and sometimes, instead of already familiar ones, completely new ones appear, albeit small in number. If you like their goals, then it is possible to increase the number of the party by making the necessary choices in random events or passing laws that they like. You can also increase funding for the factions or, conversely, begin repression, which will give an additional positive or negative attitude.
Praising factions too highly will allow you to choose temporary bonuses from them, for example, increasing the income of heatmarks per capita, which are used for research or encouraging factions, while a bad attitude will give rise to rallies and even terrorism. If you do not want to balance between several parties, then the ruler’s burden can be smoothed out by promoting not only laws from factions, but also independently choosing a direction if certain resources are lacking, it is not possible to increase the well-being of the population, and so on.
You are also allowed to expand your power, but you need to try for this. Putting, for example, the governor’s secret police project to a vote, more than 62 positive votes from all factions out of 72-80 will be required, whereas to pass a regular law, only 52 are needed. If relations with representatives of the factions are low, then you will not be able to expand your power.
Quality of life also affects the population and factions, both by increasing productivity and income, and by crime and terrorist attacks if the governor fails to cope with his duties. Here the authors have delicately woven all aspects into the game and as a result: the cities feel alive, but at the same time, without our control, everything will easily go downhill.
Construction, like most functions in the game, is intuitive. In order to send an expedition, it is necessary to build a Logistics District at a special point, and to extract resources – a Mining District. The Residential District is responsible for housing, and it is recommended to place it close to the Food District or Generator in order to reduce morbidity and mortality from the cold. Industrial districts are set up anywhere and produce modules or goods.
Each district can increase both the welfare of the population and the “devastation”. The latter negatively affects population growth, disease incidence and reduces the wear resistance of buildings, forcing modules to constantly be spent on repairs.
There are few resources in the game: oil, steam and coal – fuel for the generator, heat marks for research and promotion of factions, frost troops (depending on the number of logistics districts) that are responsible for studying the surrounding lands, generator modules for the construction of unique buildings from the latest technology branches. Additionally, there are materials (wood and metal together), modules for the construction and repair of buildings, and food.
I would especially like to note the study of lands. In the surrounding areas you can stumble upon crazy cannibal people, new resource points that can be made inexhaustible through research, trading settlements and even abandoned cities. The decision to restore them or not completely affects the plot.
I would add that restoring an abandoned city increases the difficulty, since the latter will take all resources from the remaining logistics points and can create a powerful split in the factions. So, literally in just a few weeks of in-game time I had terrorists that almost destroyed my progress for 4 story chapters. I had to make several restarts in order to correct the situation in my favor.
As for the difficulty of the game itself, before you start, you can decide on it by adjusting the difficulty sliders for economics, politics, and others, as you wish, or by choosing one of four standard difficulties. The first and second play quite comfortably (for a hardcore game), even if you are not familiar with such strategies.
Having discussed all the advantages of the project, I would also like to mention the disadvantages. At times, there was a feeling that the consumption of resources or the attitude of the factions was somehow buggy. Even when resources are in a state of profit, they are spent faster and savings are periodically reduced to zero. All the factions gradually began to hate me, even if I singled out one and put only its laws to a vote or increased its funding, which turned out to be very unpleasant. No other disadvantages were noticed. The game is perfectly optimized and it is a pleasure to watch the smooth gameplay.
Frostpunk 2 really has very few downsides, while there are plenty of upsides. The game is addictive from the first minutes and sometimes you are even torn about what to do in this amazing strategy: plan to strengthen your power, expand the territory, study the surrounding area, improve the life of the colonies, and so on. Before you have time to make most decisions, the game throws up new problems or motivation for other achievements, forcing you not to stop there. I just couldn’t evaluate the support for mods, but after release, I’m sure it will only add advantages to this already wonderful game.
