While in Warsaw with 11 bit studios, I got hands-on with The Alters and a Q&A session. I also had a Q&A session on Frostpunk 2 and hands-on with the new story mode. Having only recently had a hands-on with the utopia builder mode of Frostpunk 2, I was keen to see where the story here would jump off from the original.
As I said in my earlier preview, you can look at the original as a launchpad for the sequel, as should be the case. As indicated in the Q&A, the one thing 11 bit studios didn't want was to make a sequel that was essentially a retread of the original. When the room was advised to jump into the easy mode for this quick hands-on, I did what I always do and ignored them, going for normal, and I got the Frostpunk experience I expected - I fell. The first time, I didn't even get to the city for it to fall.
At the start of the campaign's tutorial, you find yourself trying to keep people alive after your dreadnought has crashed. I'm going to spoil something here, but survival is impossible. You want to try your best to survive, and your decisions will impact the core campaign and story, but as with anything in the Frostpunk world, the cold will kill you. I finished the tutorial on my third attempt without killing the elderly or the seals, a very proud victory after one failure and one minor seal-killing victory.
This brings us to the start of the campaign. Thirty years after the first game's events, New London is struggling. The city is essentially in ruins; the generator is down, and there isn't enough housing, resource gathering, or anything. You're the new steward and about as well-liked as Liz Truss. The initial vote of confidence can be won; fortunately, you do have something, and the promises you make to win that vote will have to be met, as well as any actions needed to survive the frozen wasteland.
The core difference here is that your actions are naturally on a bigger scale. While I'm not completely sold on the city being in a near ruinous state after thirty years - though not beyond the realms of belief - it makes it difficult to jump right into the new idea of expanding beyond the original city limits. I would have preferred a scenario where your resources are depleting, and now it's time to expand, not one where the resources have depleted and it's gone to shit before expanding.
Not a big issue, not even an issue, just a niggle. So, in Frostpunk 2, you're going beyond your city limits and making districts in the nearby area. Think of them as specialist suburbs. You'll place a residential suburb to increase housing, a resource suburb to exploit resources, a food one to start farming, and so on. This is on a hex-based grid; before you can even place them, you have to use icebreakers to let you get to the terrain. It makes for a natural expansion despite my earlier niggle.
Each of these districts - we'll go by the correct name - can also hold a few unique buildings. The first you need to build in the original city limits is your council hall, where the politics of Frostpunk 2 comes into its own. As with before, you're passing laws and balancing the needs of factions. The difference now is that these factions pass your laws through a voting system, meaning you must sometimes haggle, barter, and promise to get something through. Even if it's objectively for the best, politics gets in the way, and sometimes, the promise is to let a faction decide what the next vote is on. Not always the best if they want something to pass you don't support.
It creates a constant battle where you're trying to keep factions happy and retain their trust in you while combating the terrible effects of the frozen world outside. Which is when you come to the outside world. Beyond the area where you will be expanding your city is the frostlands. Much like the first game, you can go out into the frostlands with expeditionary teams, but now there's more detail. You can see your units moving to where you've sent them, and as you uncover more, you may even have the option of building new outposts, which can act as settlements in their own right.
Everything I've tried in Frostpunk 2, from the earlier utopia builder to this hands-on with the early stages of the story, gives that feel of a natural expansion that should be found in a successful sequel. What was micro is now macro, but it still feels like Frostpunk. This is probably the best praise I can give to the game and 11-bit studios so far, and all I know is that I'm looking forward to playing the full game when it releases on the 25th of July for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series S|X.
