Frostpunk

Frostpunk
Frostpunk cover art
Developer(s)	11 bit studios
Publisher(s)	11 bit studios
Director(s)	Michał Drozdowski [game director] Przemysław Marszał [art director]
Designer(s)	Jakub Stokalski [ lead ]
Programmer(s)	Aleksander Kauch [ lead ] Rafał Podkowiński [tech lead] Paweł Czaplarski [qa lead] Błażej Żywiczyński [lead producer]
Artist(s)	Łukasz Juszczyk [ lead ]
Composer(s)	Piotr Musiał
Platform(s)	Microsoft Windows
Release	24 April 2018
Genre(s)	City-building, survival
Mode(s)	Single-player

Frostpunk is a city-building survival game developed and published by 11 bit studios for Microsoft Windows.^[1] Within three days of release, it had sold over 250,000 copies.^[2]

Plot

The game is set in an alternate 1886 where the eruptions of Krakatoa and Mount Tambora, the dimming of the Sun, and other unknown factors caused a worldwide volcanic winter. This in turn led to widespread crop failure and the death of millions. This event roughly lines up with the real world 1883 eruption of Krakatoa, a volcanic event that led to global cooling.

In response to this, several installations called "generators" were built by the British authorities in the coal-rich North, designed to be city centers in the event that dropping temperatures force mass migration from the south. In all scenarios, the player is the leader of a city around a generator, and will have to manage resources to ensure the city's survival.

There are currently 3 scenarios in the base game and 1 additional scenario offered in a free DLC, each with different backgrounds and storylines.

A New Home

In the main scenario, the player is the leader of a group of explorers who fled the cold and the hunger of London in an expedition to find supposed massive coal reserves in the North. Instead, the group gets separated from the main expeditionary party and discovers a massive heat generator in a giant sheltered crater and settles there. The player begins to face the issue of the people's dwindling hope as they find out, through exploration, a city similar to theirs called Winterhome has been destroyed, leaving few survivors. The player has to make hard decisions in order to help the people find their purpose and stay hopeful. The player later also has to prepare enough supplies to make sure the city survives an impending storm.

The Arks

In the second scenario, the player is tasked as the leader of a group of scholars from Oxford and Cambridge responsible for establishing a self-operational city for the purpose of preserving seeds and plants from around the world from the volcanic winter. They settle around a generator located in an ice crevasse. During the gameplay, the player will be presented with the issue of a neighbouring city struggling with resources, and will have to make a choice whether or not to help them prepare for the incoming storm.

The Refugees

In the third scenario, the player is set as the leader of a refugee group who have taken over a generator reserved for the wealthy. The people have intended the city to be a place where everyone is equal, but in time the people will begin to divide into two separate social classes. The player will also have to deal with constant waves of refugees seeking shelter in the city, and the player will have to decide to accept them or reject them while also minding the limited resources they have access to.

The Fall of Winterhome

Released on September 19th 2018 as free DLC, this scenario revolves around the story of Winterhome, a city established well before the events of the main scenario. Through ineffective management by a neglectful leader, resources ran dry and the city fell into anarchy and rioting. Hundreds die in the fighting, starvation, and cold. The player is tasked of rebuilding what is left of the city and its residents, and also discovering the lore behind the eternal winter and the wasteland they live in.

Gameplay

The player character starts out with a small group of survivors (that consist of workers and engineers) and several small caches of supplies with which to build a city. From there players harvest coal, wood, steel and food in order to keep their society warm and healthy in the midst of constantly fluctuating temperatures. Weather conditions and political turmoil can cause citizens to not want to work as hard. The player has the option to use laws to regulate the productivity of their society at the cost of possibly raising discontent. Building a workshop structure allows the player to research technology that will make the city more efficient and to scout the surrounding frozen wasteland for additional survivors and resources.

Development

The game was announced in August 2016.^[1] The developers were initially targeting a release in the late third quarter of 2017, however the game was delayed into the first quarter of 2018.^[3] Eventually, the final release date – 24 April 2018 was announced on 9 March 2018.^[4]

Reception

Frostpunk received an 84 out of 100, based on 65 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews", according to review aggregator Metacritic,^[5] and a 9 out of 10 from IGN. It was nominated for "Best Strategy Game" at the Game Critics Awards,^[6] and for "Best Visual Design" and "PC Game of the Year" at the 2018 Golden Joystick Awards.^[7]

References

See also

• Year Without a Summer

External links

• Official website