Frostpunk 2 is different. The first part took the crown of the difficult construction games in 2018 with a coherent setting, heart-wrenching decisions and tough survival gameplay. In addition to snow and frost, the sequel also adds social coldness and a much broader focus, which turns the familiar game principle on its head. We fought our way through material battles and tough council meetings and can say: The daring plan was successful – Frostpunk 2 takes its its own place among the best building games a.
Source: 11 Bit Studios
Back in the ice
A sequel to Frostpunk could have been so easy for 11 Bit Studios. Simply take the gameplay of the first part and make it higher, faster, harder. Instead, they decided to a real successor to design a game that plays fundamentally differently than its famous predecessor. So much so that the developers advise fans to play the first part again if they want more from it.
Nevertheless, Frostpunk 2 shares (buy now38,24 € ) of course also a few virtues of its predecessor, especially the setting. Once again we find ourselves in the Ice desert of the world again. 30 years have passed since the events of the first part and humanity has come to terms with its frosty fate. As well as that can be done in a post-apocalypse. But now new problems are on the horizon. On the one hand, the coal seams are slowly running out and new resources must be developed.
On the other hand, people are no longer willing to simply give command to a leader. They want Right to have a say and form factions. Last but not least, the constant frost brings back an old enemy that also threatens the city with its whiteouts.
It has developed significantly in recent years. Gone are the days of rickety huts and a handful of people desperately gathering around a small generator. Scale of Frostpunk 2 is much biggerThis is best seen in the campaign. Here we once again determine the fate of New London, the city in the crater from the first part.
Source: 11 bit studios
News from New London
The crater is now completely built up, but that is not enough. The city is bursting at the seams and must continue to expand. This is visually excellently implementedThe developers are consistently developing their steampunk universe and the result is a real feast for the eyes. Each building is bursting with details. There are pipes, drive wheels and other details everywhere. We zoom seamlessly from the world map to the small steam turbines.
New London in particular shines here. The city, which is slowly growing out of its protected crater, is at the same time a fantastic metaphor for a monster that is slowly extending its tentacles into the surrounding area. The developers have stylistically done a great jobwhich we couldn't get enough of even after many hours of playing.
Of course, the full splendor requires strong hardware, but Frostpunk 2 also runs on more frugal systems. For our test, we played in 4K, high details and the DLSS quality mode with an RTX 4080 and a Ryzen 7 5800X. If you can accept lower resolution and fewer details, you will be able to play well with an RTX 3060 or less. The game also supports all common upscaling technologies from Intel, AMD and Nvidia.
The much larger cities also give Frostpunk 2 a much broader focusInstead of just a few people, our city will be home to several thousand people from the start, who will naturally have a corresponding need for resources. In order to meet this need, we are tapping into the last sources of resources around our city.
To get to the hexagonal building areas In order to get to Frostpunk 2, we first have to break up the ice around our city with heavy machinery. This requires workers and some money. Then we don't just put up one building, but entire districts that take up several building sites. Such districts can be built for housing, food production, resource extraction, goods production and logistics.