Frostpunk 2 Makes Brutal Politics a Fantastic Game of Survival

ign.com:

City builders and survival games can be difficult genres to ease yourself into. They can seem especially daunting when they’re a sequel to a predecessor built on as complex foundations as Frostpunk was. It's pleasantly surprising, then, that Frostpunk 2 feels so welcoming to new players. As someone not fully versed in the two genres it blends so delicately, and with just a handful of hours in the original Frostpunk, I loved my time with its prettier, and thoroughly political sequel. Largely thanks to the neverending series of moral conundrums thrown my way, I had a lot of fun in New London, even if all of the citizens I tried to save experienced the complete opposite.

Tasked with building and evolving a city to combat the endless cold, Frostpunk 2 shares its objective with the original. But everything has increased in scale in the sequel. Instead of constructing individual buildings, you’ll create entire city districts with the click of a button. Time is no longer measured in minutes, but ticks by in weeks and months. And, perhaps most importantly and most fun of all, a greater emphasis is now placed on the politics of the world and the influence of the factions residing in it.

But before I could allow my political machinations to play out, I had to navigate the tutorial – a must for both experienced and newcomer Frostpunk players due to the sweeping gameplay changes. The motto of Frostpunk 2 is “The city must not fall”. Well, it did within 20 minutes. Tasked with keeping a small community of Wanderers safe, they quickly lost faith in me after being left freezing cold and worked to the bone. I learned from my mistakes, though, and treated my humble population with greater care next time around.

This tutorial may have only been a half an hour prologue but it set up the tension of what it takes to survive in Frostpunk 2 perfectly. I was given 76 weeks to stockpile 40,000 food rations before a severe whiteout arrived, covering the settlement in a thick snowstorm. I