~ Review ~
Climate catastrophe plunging the world into unending winter. Ruins of a collapsed civilisation jutting out of desolate snow deserts. A future that many of us already dread. In our present day, fear of apocalyptic weather is real.
Tapping into this terror is 2018's Frostpunk, a 'society survival simulator' that tasks us with building and governing one of the last remaining outposts of humankind. The game consists of four scenarios (plus three more added in DLC) and an 'Endless' mode. Each scenario features unique objectives - including seed depositories that cannot be allowed to freeze or dissenters who must be dealt with - and slight narrative variation but, in essence, every session plays the same: manage resources to survive the declining temperature whilst ensuring your people don't lose all hope nor become too discontent (represented by two meters at the bottom of the screen). There are no bespoke tools in any given scenario, and your people develop and react in predictable ways. Your city never grows particularly big and your options are relatively limited, all of which makes Frostpunk far less sprawling than other strategy games, and more gratifyingly compact.
Talking of distinguishing itself from genre stablemates, the mounting environmental threat makes for a compelling premise. 11 Bit Studios has chosen to present an uncompromising and harrowing challenge and it certainly succeeds in creating this first impression. Whilst it tutorialises well, Frostpunk refrains from hand-holding when it comes to setting priorities. On my first attempt, I established production lines before building homes and I wasted time trying to research new technology when I should have been stockpiling coal. Suffice to say, we did not survive the cruel, cruel winter.
Frostpunk's other innovation revolves around the 'society' element of its simulation. Whilst it is possible to succumb to the cold, it is far more likely that your survivors will run out of hope or become so discontent with your rule that they will abandon you. Most of what you do effects hope and discontent but most prominently, you can pass laws that will shape your society. These can take the form of necessary decisions (e.g. what to do with the deceased) but the majority augment your control over your citizens. Authoritarian mandates might force greater efficiency but will raise discontent. Concessions to your people's safety and comfort will help quell that discontent and raise hope.
The uncompromising and harrowing challenge of Frostpunk is intended to force you to make difficult decisions, to push you into a place where there are no good decisions. Each scenario has its own spin on dual objectives that might be thought of as 'survival' and 'humanity'. Neglect the latter for the sake of the former and your victory screen will spell it out to you: "You survived, but at what cost?" Unfortunately, the push towards despotism can feel so strong that this message can ring a little false.
Most players (me included) rising to the challenge will begin gaming the systems: min/maxing resources, hope, discontent, production and laws. I quickly learned that it is always worth forcing people to work 24 hour shifts if you have discontent to spare. Whatever hidden consequences there may have been, I felt comfortable playing the numbers to extract the best outcomes without regret. The UI and menus are introduced and present robustly and concisely, meaning it wasn't long before I was jumping about between tasks quickly and confidently. (It bears mentioning Frostpunk works incredibly well on PS5 - everything is well mapped to a controller, and aside from how easy it was to accidentally close pop-up messages, I had no issues navigating the PS5 port and in fact, it has encouraged me to try more PC games on Sony's hardware.)
11 Bit Studios would like to use the hostile setting of its game to pose difficult questions about how far you are willing to go to survive. But upon reaching victory, my feelings were wrapped up in how effectively I managed the system, not in the ethics of my leadership.
Partly, this is a flaw in Frostpunk's design. Its world is made to feel so extreme that to avoid failure, I abandoned any pretence of expressing myself by role-playing a ruler. In one session, I built a child shelter but also instated executions. I rarely (if ever) agonised over whether it could be more important to retain humanity than to survive. Since 'survival' is the primary win condition, Frostpunk inadvertently encourages ruthless play – in other words, optimisation.
Flawed design, perhaps – but this style of play is also endemic to the genre (maybe even to all games).
Optimising management strategies is all about brutal efficiency. Although you might be keeping an eye on discontent, there is no downtime for optimised citizens. Every scrap of resource must be working towards the next best goal at all times, and that includes people. Once you learn the pattern of the early game, decision-making transforms into task-queuing. Assign gathering tasks immediately, build gathering posts, houses, a medical post, a workshop, and then reassign people as soon as possible. It's perhaps a little too easy to pause every time you need to take an action, and then flick to fast-forward as soon as your plans have been set in motion.
One issue with this playstyle is simply fatigue. Engagement and investment drop off - you are less playing and more going through the motions. Frostpunk is able to up the challenge quite significantly, particularly in The Fall of Winterhome expansion and in the higher difficulty customisation options. I tried Endless mode with all the sliders turned to 'extreme' and realised that I still had some way to go before creating a truly optimised strategy. In this, there is fair scope for replaying that tight gameplay core.
The broader problem with playing Frostpunk as a ruthless leader is how it undermines that intention of posing ethical questions. As mentioned, optimisation tends to crush whatever empathy you might feel for your citizens, treating them as means to an end. But perhaps games like this are rigged from the beginning. To put one person in control of a majority is an inherently flawed way of exploring ethical leadership. Every management, builder, or god game risks being read through a fascist lens whereby the will of the one reigns supreme. They are dictator games. It is not all they are and it is unusual to feel like the game intents to endorse such leadership in the real world. However, it is perhaps a little ironic that Frostpunk uses this genre to ask difficult questions about humanity in extreme situations. I celebrated my victories despite having achieved them with both child welfare and capital punishment.
Frostpunk 2 is on the horizon. Previews recently exposed a little of what that game will be, revealing a more expansive canvas. You will no longer be micromanaging workers, instead trying to sway people's opinions on social and political issues. Although you will still be constructing a city, it will be a more zoomed-out affair – apparently starting with an established city and developing it not by placing buildings but by designating areas residential, industrial, commercial etc. (in the vain of Cities: Skylines). It could be the perfect way for 11 Bit Studios to develop the mechanisms by which they set up their ethical quandaries, moving away from exploitable systems and into more diverse narrative journeying. May we no longer relentlessly funnel people into their most productive niches. I hope we spend more time in that top-level 'society simulation', grappling with ethical conundrums using mechanics that reflect their nuance.
Although there is some dissonance, as the philosophical ambitions of Frostpunk buckle under the discerning strategy player's optimisation, that tight core loop remains a fun, engaging challenge. The game offers a convincing threat and a robust system of mechanics to manage it. Untethered from the scenarios, and leaving aside the harder difficulty options, Endless mode on a larger map arguably shows the game at its best: without the heavy-handed moralizing that comes with higher-pressure, Frostpunk is a distinctive city builder with thoughtful societal implications that just about provides a simulation of real conflict between humanity and survival. It is a brilliant foundation on which to build. Just as more established settlements might tease out more elaborate challenges, the sequel could very well see the best parts of this game flourish anew next year. We have only to wait, and to survive this winter.