How Frostpunk 2 Revives The Brutalist Strategy Series In A Novel Way
Frostpunk, This War Of Mine, released in 2014, was arguably the game that made me realize creator 11 Bit Studios had a firm grip on brutalist tactics and, more importantly, knew how to make the player bend morality for the sake of survival—especially when I had to take some medicine from someone’s sick grandpa. Nothing like it existed in 2014, and with the introduction of Frostpunk in 2018, that very brutal school of game design was given a far larger scope and scope, assigning armchair commanders the responsibility of managing a whole city that is trapped in a climatic catastrophe.
Six years later
Frostpunk 2 aims to resurrect the brutalist strategy that defined the first game in the series. Players are once again required to guide a group of desperate survivors toward their ultimate survival while fending off internal and external pressures that threaten to destroy them completely. Nevertheless, Frostpunk 2 does all of this against a relatively distinct setting.
In Frostpunk 2, players take on the position of the Steward, an overseer of New London’s linked city districts. This job title first looks to mirror the player’s duties and functions in the original game. However, Frostpunk 2 depicts a world where wealth is achievable despite human nature, in contrast to the previous Frostpunk game, which was very much a gloomy, survivalist nightmare with little hope for a brighter future. Frostpunk 2 undoubtedly recognizes that mankind itself poses the greatest danger to the world, much as its predecessor and other post-apocalyptic stories do. As a result, the sequel primarily uses this idea as its central theme throughout.
As one would anticipate, moral dilemmas arise often in Frostpunk 2, forcing players to make difficult decisions between frequently terrible and less horrible outcomes in a world where almost everything that can go wrong does go wrong—often rather terribly. If you have a large younger workforce, for instance, you could take them out of your kid shelters (if you ever put them up) and send them to work in your freshly constructed, although rather dangerous, Advanced Coal Mine. However, what would you do if you found out that the mine had a malfunction that might have killed the youth within, while their destined labor produced critical ore that was processed to keep the lights on in your city?
The most practical difference between 11 Bit Studio’s ambitious sequel and its predecessor, the Council, is how well it integrates into the notion of civilization evolution that Frostpunk 2 is portraying. The Council is a key and very large component of Frostpunk 2’s brutalist strategy gameplay. It is a convocation of many represented factions, each with its own stake in the game, and which you must get a majority vote (out of100) on any legislation you try to design and approve.
Frostpunk 2 guarantees that players aren’t just concerned with resource hunting and moral decisions but are also focused on chasing votes and appeasing factions to get what they want. This is because the Council is made up of individuals with large egos, odious politics, and diverse religious beliefs. Does a legislation requiring more technological innovation need to be passed in order to boost agricultural productivity during the next lean months? While the technologically oriented Engineer group may be pleased with such a regulation, the Foragers, who reject such advancements and place more faith in the land’s natural abundance, are likely to take offense. Conflict over other matters may arise as a result later on. Of course, if you’re feeling very tyrannical, you could just proclaim a state of emergency and launch a vicious crackdown on anybody who disagree with you. This would ensure that your political opponents know they shouldn’t mess with you and would shatter friends and family via acts of violence.
Frostpunk 2 does not provide any nice options—only somewhat less awful ones that yet leave you with a yawning, devoid void of complete darkness in the place of your heart. Frostpunk 2’s adoption of brutalist political tactics and narrow-minded viewpoints raises an unpleasant mirror to the actual world more so than the original game ever did. The poorest members of society will undoubtedly be most impacted by a deluge of hurriedly made, frenzied decisions, while the wealthier and more competent members of society will generally escape the fallout.
Frostpunk 2 challenges players to try to find a balance between averting immediate crises that pose a serious threat to the city and weighing the likelihood and risk of longer-term crises and their potential to unfold later on, lest New London devolve into an enormous jumble of chaos.
Despite the fact that it is foolish to attempt to please everyone, Frostpunk 2 requires the player to use its new Council system to carefully balance the interests of the many factions. Therefore, don’t be shocked if Frostpunk 2 makes you feel like a crazy, attention-deficit disordered person who can’t seem to balance the many demands on your plate or who just has emotional tunnel vision and only deals with the pressing problems that are the biggest concerns on your mind.
In the end, the only thing that is colder than the vast frozen wastelands and icy tundra that envelop New London are the choices you have to make to keep things running smoothly. Frostpunk 2 aims to once again emphasize these harsh choices in what appears to be an era of prosperity. Go ahead and do it.
