In the video, which you can check out below, lead designer Jakub Stokalski spoke about the challenges presented to players by the game, since they have to make many difficult choices to ensure the survival of their cities. With the Switch release, the studio hopes to ensure that the high-stakes city-builder is able to successfully make the jump to a portable format.

“I love Frostpunk because you always carry with you all of the harsh decisions that you make and all of the guilt,” said Jakub Stokalski. “Soon, you’ll be able to do that quite literally because Frostpunk is coming to Nintendo Switch. That’s right, all of the exciting gameplay and moral tension that made it into a modern classic, ready to be enjoyed on the go. As lead designer of the original Frostpunk and co-director of the sequel, being able to bring this game to so many of you is a dream come true. It’s the perfect culmination of the journey.”

In the same video, 11 bit studios also revealed more details about the other things that it has been working on, like Frostpunk 1886 and a new expansion for Frostpunk 2, dubbed Breach of Trust.

Frostpunk was originally released on PC all the way back in 2018, before then coming to PS4 and Xbox One in 2019, and iOS and Android in 2024. The title offers a new take on the “survival” style of city-builders, where players have to deal with harsh conditions as they try to make their cities habitable for their potentially-happy citizens. Along with having to deal with incredibly low temperatures as they plan their cities’ layouts, players also often have to pass new laws or make harsh decisions to ensure that the city survives.

The title is slated to be revisited using modern technology with Frostpunk 1886. The studio has promised that it is going to be “so much more” than just a remaster, however, and there are plans to add plenty of new content to the game. Among other things, Frostpunk 1886 will be making use of motion capture to ensure that the animation of citizens is accurate and unique, adding more variety to the game’s world while also making the city feel more alive. The lighting system is also getting a major upgrade.

Frostpunk 1886 is slated for release in 2027, however. In the meantime, you can take a look at Frostpunk 2, which was originally released on PC in 2024, before coming to PS5 and Xbox Series X/S in 2025. The title offers a major change in gameplay, giving players a more zoomed-out look at the world, and as a result, more zoomed-out gameplay. Rather than placing individual buildings, players instead put down districts, which then get populated with buildings. Check out our review for more details.

In the studio’s latest quarterly earnings report, president Przemysław Marszał revealed that the company is planning on releasing a new title in the Frostpunk universe at some point in 2027, with production already underway. That’s in addition to a separate, larger-scale project targeting a 2029 release, which doesn’t seem to be related to Frostpunk.

“As a developer and publisher, we intend to diversify both the scale of our projects and their development timelines,” Marszał said. “This also means capitalising on near-term, financially attractive opportunities. This underlies our decision to initiate production on the next project set in the Frostpunk universe, which we plan to launch as early as 2027. In parallel, we have commenced development on a larger-scale title, targeted for release in 2029.”

Presumably, the next Frostpunk will be a relatively smaller-scale title, considering the fact Frostpunk 2 only just launched. What that will mean in precise terms remains to be seen, but fans of 11 bit’s post-apocalyptic city-building survival franchise certainly have reason to be excited.

Check out our review for Frostpunk 2 here. It’s sold over 511,000 copies as of last November and launches for PS5 and Xbox Series X/S sometime this Summer.

This War of Mine

A game to endure rather than enjoy, This War of Mine paints a harrowing picture of survival inside a war-ravaged city. Overseeing a small band of survivors you’ll take sanctuary from the chaos outside during daytime, cooking, crafting tools, healing, and upgrading your hideout. Under the cloak of night time darkness your survivors must venture out in search of materials, resources, and medicine, encountering NPCs both friendly and hostile. Whether you choose to trade, rob, or kill those you meet depends on the desperation within your group; all morals go out the window when you’re besieged, fighting for survival. This War of Mine tells an intimate tale laced with guilt and shame, with the mental wellbeing of your survivors just as important as the food in their bellies and roof over their head.

The Age of Coal is Over

Set 30 years after Frostpunk 1, the expansive sequel replaces coal with oil as a more powerful heating resource. Frostpunk 2’s opening hours are spent using coal, but as demonstrated in the beta, this primitive resource fails to keep the generator going for long. As such, one of the beta’s multiple endings involves the discovery of an oil colony. Oil’s role in gameplay terms is getting the city to thrive instead of just surviving the cold, resulting in a city that can expand far beyond its generator. It’s clear that the dev team is saving the finer details of oil’s role for release.

Build and Manage Entire Districts Instead of Just Buildings

With oil comes great responsibility, and that means a bigger city. Frostpunk 1 focused more on the intimate hub surrounding the all-important generator. Things were much smaller in scale in the coal days, with a single building marking a substantial addition. Now, players can expand their city into different districts. Each district in Frostpunk 2 fulfills a unique production role. A housing district will require different resources than a food district, supplying you with distinct advantages. Supply and demand fuel the economics of Frostpunk 2, a change from the brutal ‘scraping to survive’ economics that the first game necessitated.

You’re No Longer the Sole Dictator

Frostpunk 2 has you negotiating with leaders to pass laws through a democratic Council Hall. The Council Hall adds a deep new diplomatic layer to the game, tying together the new faction system with it. Proposing a new law is often met with stern resistance from committee members, forcing the player to negotiate with them and pressure delegates. Your relationships with factions will be strained if you negotiate too forcefully with them. Factions are a complex new wrinkle deserving of their own entry on this list.

Different Competing Factions

Upon starting up a new game, you’re met with the option to choose between different Communities to populate your city. Worker communities prioritize different values and resources than thinker communities, with each eventually developing into full-fledged factions. Factions come into play through the Council Hall negotiations and the research of new buildings and technologies. For example, faction-exclusive research comes at a discount if you are on good terms with that particular faction. Get on bad terms with workers or the technocrat faction and they could work against you in Council Hall sessions and make it harder to research certain buildings.

Time Is Measured in Weeks Instead of Days

Frostpunk 2 moves along at a brisker pace than its predecessor, literally. The in-game clock now includes week, month, and year indicators. Days pass by in literal minutes, and the visuals indicate as much. Roads between the connected districts are lit by the blurred outline of swift-moving citizens, reminiscent of time-lapse car lights. This zoomed-out perspective of in-game time is just one manifestation of Frostpunk 2’s expanded scope.

Frostpunk 2 Uses Unreal Engine 5 While Frostpunk 1 Used Liquid Engine

Frostpunk 1 doesn’t look ugly by any stretch of the imagination, but wow does the sequel outshine it in the graphics department. Lighting in particular really pops due to the high contrast Lumen tech facilitated by UE5. The team does a good job differentiating terrain to make everything look organic and rugged in Frostpunk 2, which is just further helped by the capabilities of Unreal Engine 5.

Hexagonal Grid Tiles

Surprisingly enough, Frostpunk 1 didn’t have grid-based building placement. It didn’t need it due to the micro-scale it was operating on. But now with comprehensive districts connected by long roads, grids are a necessity. Empty land spaces are divvied up by hexagonal tiles, but once you build on the land, a wider grid outline surrounds your property. This is a small, yet vital addition that accommodates Frostpunk 2’s larger scope.

Frostbreaking

Extracting coal and ore deposits in the frozen wastes beyond the city is no simple feat. Unlike the first game, you must send Frostbreaker teams to break the ice before building on the tiles and extracting materials. Frostbreaking may seem like unnecessary busywork, but it allows you to expand the city limits far beyond anything dreamt of in the first game. You can stretch the city out far into the distance … if you can keep up with the resource demand, that is.

Relations, Tension, and Trust Replace Discontent and Hope Social Resources

Frostpunk 2 builds upon the first game’s social resources with Relations, Tension, and Trust. All three of these resources tie into the substantial role that factions and communities play. How other faction groups perceive you replace the brutal survival-oriented problems faced in the first game.

New Crime and Squalor Resource Tabs

Crime increases as goods become more scarce, as you’d expect. You can mitigate increased crime by posting Guard Squads around the districts, but a general population increase leads to a rise in crime. Likewise, Squalor worsens as the population increases, resulting in a dirtier, more disease-addled city. Making sure you balance city expansion with resources to counterbalance the increased population looks to be a fun challenge in Frostpunk 2.

A Population of Thousands Rather Than Hundreds

And of course, the reason we have new Squalor and Crime resources is due to Frostpunk 2’s much larger population. Micromanaging a sub-hundred population in Frostpunk 1 required sophisticated micromanagement skills, while the sequel requires you to multitask across multiple social vectors and resources to satiate the masses.

From Micro to Macro

This shift from micro to macro is a pretty substantial one. I can’t help but think that there’s an element of intimacy and familiarity that is lost when managing a multi-district city. This macro-scale approach will undoubtedly rope in new players averse to the first game’s micromanagement. But the broader scale also makes Frostpunk 2 a little bit less niche and more akin to other city-builder games. While there are still micromanagement elements present in Frostpunk 2, the zoomed-out perspective emphasizes the macro far more.

Far Different Moral Dilemmas

Moral dilemmas in Frostpunk 2 mostly show themselves when deciding which Faction you want to partner with and what suggestions to prioritize. Getting a law passed that bans food additives isn’t as black and white of a moral decision as boosting labor for a couple of weeks to stave off the cold. The moral dilemmas presented in Frostpunk 2 may be less dramatic than in the first game, but they’re more nuanced and politically driven.

Shift From Survival Management to Social Management

Frostpunk 2’s creative director perfectly summed up the game’s premise with the question, “What happens when you survive the un-survivable?” Every system in the game reflects this shift from basic survival to societal evolution. From the laws passed at Council Hall to all the different Factions at play, Frostpunk 2 focuses more on social management than survival management.

You Play as the Steward, Replacing the Deceased Captain

Finally, there’s us, the player. We played the role of the Captain back in the first game. We held the responsibility as a lone dictator, in a sense, with little to no opposition but the deathly cold and riotous populace. Your role in Frostpunk 2 is still a major one, though there’s a lot more teamwork and negotiations with other leaders this time around. The Steward is still a big fish, but the pond is much bigger than the first game, making it a more diplomatic affair overall. We’ll see just how much we, as the Steward, can get away with when Frostpunk 2 releases on September 20th.

Some other notable figures shared by the developer include about three percent of total players having over 100 hours played. The average playtime is 24 hours, but on Steam, only 0.6 percent of all players have the “Endless Slave Driver” Achievement. It’s unlocked in Endless Mode by causing all settlements to become distrustful of you.

Perhaps the least surprising fact is that “The City Must Survive’ is the most popular track from the game’s OST, with over 6.4 million plays on Spotify and +1.3 million on YouTube. Check out our review for the base game here.

As for the future, Frostpunk 2 launches on July 25th for PC, with Xbox Series X/S and PS5 versions coming later. 11 bit studios recently concluded a beta for Deluxe Edition owners, providing access to a limited version of the Utopia Builder mode. Check out its accolades trailer here to see what various publications had to say about it.

Today, #Frostpunk is celebrating its 6th anniversary. That means that the game's now old enough to cover its first emergency shift in the coal mine.

Here are 6 facts highlighting those 6 years ❄ pic.twitter.com/NaMebF0tCV

— Frostpunk 2 (@frostpunkgame) April 24, 2024

Regardless, it’s a fantasy that many enjoy indulging in, and there are some great games to help with that. Check out 25 of the best post-apocalyptic games available on PC and what makes them so fun.

Fallout 4

Controversial though it may be among hardcore fans, Fallout 4 remains the most accessible game in the series, with some of the best combat. The Commonwealth is pretty massive, with multiple points of interest to explore, junk to pick up and settlements to build up. Learning more about the post-nuclear fallout world, whether it’s HalluciGen Inc and its suspicious chemicals that drive enemies mad or the creepiness of Dunwich Borers, is enticing. Plus, you can lead gangs of raiders or build robots with the DLC. Just steer clear of Preston Garvey. Your sanity will thank you.

Iceberg Lounge – Batman: Arkham City

Batman: Arkham City is a great game with plenty of high points, but the Iceberg Lounge isn’t one of those. And the reason behind it is simply how uninventive this section is to play, since it requires pulling the Dark Knight across an iced out pool of water through the Batclaw. If something goes awry during this process, a shark will come out of the water and eat you and you’ll have to do it all over again. In addition to this, you only get to fight a few goons during this section – so it’s also pretty light on the action as well. All in all, it’s not difficult or very frustrating, but it can be surprisingly unremarkable – which is why it deserves its rightful place in this list.

The game that comes out on top for the most people is Arkane’s Deathloop, with game director Matthew Gallant, development director Waylon Brinck, and game director Kurt Margenau all naming it as their favourite game of 2021. It Takes Two is also a popular choice, while other major releases of the year like Metroid Dread, Returnal, Inscryption, and The Dark Pictures: House of Ashes also being highlighted.

Some games that released prior to 2021 have also been recognized by some at Naughty Dog, including the likes of Frostpunk, Fortnite, and Bugnax. Overall, it’s a pretty diverse selection of games- and pretty much every single one of them is worth playing, so they’re good picks, too.

Naughty Dog itself had a fairly quiet year in 2021, after having released The Last of Us Part 2 in the previous year. There’s no official word on what lies next for the studio, but we do know that a standalone multiplayer The Last of Us game is in the works, while leaks have also claimed that a ground-up remake of the original The Last of Us title is also in development.

Well, now we know what the next free game is: it’s 11 bit studios’ Frostpunk, which is replacing InnerSloth’s megahit Among Us. Among Us was free from May 27th to June 3rd. Frostpunk will be free until June 10th. Frostpunk is a “society survival game where heat means life and every decision comes at a price. In an entirely frozen world, people develop steam-powered technology to oppose the overwhelming cold. You face the task of building the last city on Earth and securing the means necessary for your community to survive.”

We liked Frostpunk quite a bit when we reviewed it in 2018, awarding the game a 9 and praising its aesthetic and gameplay choices, so anyone who hasn’t grabbed it should consider picking it up before it goes away on June 10th. As for what’s going to be free after Frostpunk, it’s another mystery game, so we’ll just have to wait and see.

After years of support, 11 bit Studios has released Frostpunk’s last expansion, On the Edge, for PC players. It takes place after the Great Storm of the base game and sees players having to create a new Outpost in the frozen wasteland. Check out the trailer below.

Along with having to deal with other communities, which includes establishing trade routes, you’ll need to create Safe Routes to take care of any shortages. The Frostland has some 16 new areas to explore and this time, you won’t have control over the Book of Laws. Fortunately, there are seven new technologies and three new structures to make use of.

Endless Mode is also seeing a new setting with Settlements and there are a bunch of new improvements and fixes. Furthermore, there are six new tracks which amounts to 25 minutes of new music. On the Edge can be purchased standalone but new players can also pick up the Frostpunk: Game of the Year Edition, which includes the base game and all DLC, at 48 percent off.