Frostpunk Game Review

Frostpunk is a survival city-management game published in 2018 by 11 Bit Studios. It was the first game of its genre — managing what remains of society on the brink of a collapse — and it was even a BAFTA nominee. And because there’s a sequel coming out, I had to try out the original. 

Frostpunk Storyline

At the beginning of Frostpunk, you’re met with a short cutscene that explains what happened to the world. Sometime in 1800’s, the world froze over and our society has been sent into collapse. Scientific teams went to different areas to build generators and attempt to develop technology to help people survive. But they haven’t returned and a group of people from London sets out to find better living conditions. 

They travel across the sea (which might mean they went to Scandinavia or Russia), and land on an inhospitable terrain. But their luck changes and they find a functioning generator in a crater. 

I won’t reveal more due to spoilers, but I can say that I liked the story — there’s just enough of it to keep things entertaining, but not so much as to overwhelm the gameplay. Sometimes, people will also come with their individual stories, but that depends on your actions. 

You sort of build your own story while you build your city, take care of its people and make decisions. And depending on all of that, your story can play out in many different ways. If you’re already done with the game, here’s a page that lists all possible endings.

Keep in mind that the Frostpunk story lasts for only 48 days, so you don’t have an infinite amount of time.

Gameplay

The Generator

The first thing you’ll have to do when you find the crater in Frostpunk is get the generator running. Conveniently, there’s some coal in the area around it. Once you collect enough, you can activate it and get some heat for your people. 

To keep your people warm (and alive), you’ll need to keep the generator constantly running. It requires 6 coal per hour at the base level, and will spend more as you upgrade its level and range (which you can do through research and technology advancements). 

My advice here would be to get the coal mine running as quickly as possible. Yes, there are smaller piles of coal in the area, but you’ll spend those quickly and it’s not a permanent solution, especially as you expand. Building a few coal mines will save you a lot of worry. 

I’d also recommend pairing coal mines with the Automations when you get them. You can build those in factories (they’ll require a steam core), but you’ll also get one for free if you explore the area. This way, your people won’t have to work when the temperature drops extremely low. 

Steam Hubs

The generator works in conjunction with Steam Hubs. They’re like individual, smaller generators that send heat in a small radius around  them. To get them built, you’ll need steel and wood, both of which you can find in the area. Once you get further in the game, I recommend building mines for these two resources as well. 

At the beginning, you won’t need many Steam Hubs, but you’ll need a lot more as you progress (and the temperature drops). 

You can build them only on the streets, and set them up to work only during certain times to minimize coal consumption. You can also shut them down if you need to. Research will boost the range or temperature increase levels of your Steam Hubs, which will prove very useful. 

I would recommend building Steam Hubs in production areas so your people can work through colder times. Personally, I also built them close to housing that wasn’t in the immediate vicinity of the generator. Try not to overlap the heat radiuses of Steam Hubs because it has no effect. 

Housing

The next thing you’ll need is housing for your people. For tents (the base level housing in Frostpunk) to get built, you’ll need some wood. Again, there’s quite a lot of it in the crater, so just send some people to collect it. For the original population of your city, you’ll need 8 tents, but as you get more people, you’ll need more. 

Make sure to place them on the ring closest to the generator, as their insulation level is very low and they’ll need to be kept warm. Tents can house up to 10 people. 

You can also build a Child Shelter, but that will only be useful for a short while. I sent the children to apprentice for Engineers almost immediately. You can also send them to be medical apprentices. 

As you progress and do more research, you’ll be able to build stronger housing with more room and better insulation. 

Other Buildings for People in Frostpunk

In order to keep your population safe and happy, you’ll have the option to create a few more buildings. 

• Healing. Your people will inevitably get sick or injured so you’ll need medical buildings. You have the basic one, that takes care of up to 10 people at a time. Then there’s the Infirmary, which can deal with more serious injuries and conditions, the Care Home, which takes care of people in recovery, etc. This is a very important aspect of the game and if you don’t heal your people, they will die. Keep in mind that they also won’t be able to work while they heal. 
• Burial. Inevitably, some of your people will die. To keep your people’s hope up and discontent low, you can build a cemetery. You’ll only need the one. 
• Entertainment. Also inevitably, discontent will rise. So, you’ll have the option to build fighting rings, public houses, even pleasure houses. They’re not super useful otherwise, but they’ll keep everyone calm with them. 
• Religion. If you decide to pursue a religious path, you’ll also have the ability to build temples, churches, shrines, etc. These will allow you to activate evening prayers and other events that can help hope rise or convert the rebels. If you set up religious leaders, they can act as guards or police officers (basically).

Food 

Obviously, your people will need food to survive. Almost immediately, you’ll be able to build a Hunter’s Hut and send some hunters off to get raw food. But you can only get about 20 raw food at base level on a daily basis, so you’ll also need a Cook House to turn all this raw food into food rations that can last longer. 

As you upgrade the equipment your hunters use, you’ll be able to get more food. But you can also make laws that will either turn raw food into soup or include additives that will make it last longer. Both of those choices have consequences like hope getting lower, more discontent and even illness. 

Further down the line, you’ll be able to build Hothouses, which produce raw food on their own and you won’t need so much from the hunters. Keep in mind that Hothouses need to be crewed as well. 

Resources

In Frostpunk, you have a few basic resources: 

• Coal. This is used to power the generator and Steam Hubs. You’ll need a lot of it and can gather it in the area. However, as mentioned, I recommend building a coal mine as soon as you can because it’s more stable. 
• Wood. This is used to build your roads and buildings, upgrade research, and even produce more coal. It’s also found in the crater in smaller piles, but you’ll run out of it quickly. Research the drill as soon as possible to have a stable source of wood. 
• Steel. This is used to create more complex buildings and technology. It’s found in smaller piles in the crater, but you can (and should) also build a Steel Mine next to the iron ore at the edge of the crater. 
• Steam Cores. Unlike other resources, Steam Cores can’t be found in the crater, they have to be found through exploration. You’ll need them to power mines, factories, and Automatons which are all extremely useful. I spent my first Steam Core to build a coal mine. 
• Raw Food. As mentioned above, hunters get you raw food that you can then turn into meals for everyone. 
• Food rations. Depending on what you choose, you can turn raw food into soup, normal meals or food with additives and this will form your food rations. 

Research 

Once you build the Research building, you’ll be able to find new technologies, upgrade your current ones, upgrade buildings, the Generator, Steam Hubs, exploration, etc. You’ll need engineers to work here. Keep in mind that you can build more Research buildings but this won’t allow you to research two things at a time — only one thing a bit faster. 

Law Making

Once you build all the main things in your new city, you’ll be able to make some laws. The first ones are basic, Adaptation laws — child labor or child education, extended shifts, soup or food with additives, etc. Each choice you make will affect the story and it will have consequences like lower or higher hope, discontent, etc. 

Further in, you’ll have an option between Faith or Order, which are about keeping the order in the city (either through faith or police). Then you’ll also get Labour and Administration laws. 

Each law has a cooldown, so you won’t be able to make several laws in quick succession. 

Temperature

At the beginning, the temperature will be -20 degrees Celsius. Quickly after starting, you’ll get your first temperature drop, which will get it to -40 degrees. Each temperature drop affects your city negatively, but comes with a temperature rise as well (a few days later, depending on difficulty and your current stage in the game). However, after each rise, the temperature doesn’t return to the original one — it only improves about 10 degrees or so. So, it will only get colder. 

Exploration

Once you build a Beacon, you’ll be able to explore the area. Your team will be able to find more people, resources and other settlements. Keep in mind that, as you find empty or destroyed settlements, the hope will drop and discontent will rise. 

Graphics and Audio

Due to the nature of the game, I can’t say that the graphics are either impressive or not. They’re pretty decent. You can zoom in and out (though you’ll likely keep it zoomed out), and if you zoom in, you can see individual people working or just living, which was fun. There’s a frosty vignette around your screen which is a nice element to help immerse you into the cold atmosphere. 

The audio, though, is really good. There are constant sounds of howling winds, people murmuring, even bells once someone dies. 

Does Frostpunk Work on SteamDeck?

While you can technically play Frostpunk on SteamDeck, I wouldn’t recommend it. With the default controller settings, you’ll mostly need to use the touchpads or the touchscreen. If you download user-created controller settings (there are plenty), the situation slightly improves but I still didn’t like it. 

Another problem is that everything is so tiny and it feels clumsy to play it without a proper mouse. So, I quickly moved on to my PC for Frostpunk and had a blast there. 

I hope that Frostpunk 2 will come with SteamDeck support because I’d love to play it there. 

Games Like Frostpunk

Here are some games you can play if you’re craving more Frospunk-like content: 

Ixion

The Long Dark

Oxygen Not Included

Against The Storm

FAQs