The long-awaited Frostpunk 2 expands upon the ideas of the award-winning original, amplifying the survival game's scope and scale in new ways. The title is developed and published by 11 bit studios, a company best known for its hand in the initial Frostpunk and This War of Mine. A recent demo presentation from game co-directors Jakub Stokalski and Łukasz Juszczyk - the former of which who also serves as design director and the latter as art director - at Gamescom gave a better idea of some of the game's main systems and how it's grown since the original.

Frostpunk 2 takes place 30 years after the first entry, moving into a post-apocalyptic environment where there's a sort of blank slate regarding how things should be rebuilt. However, every member of the new society has their own ideas and principles when it comes to just how that world should be constructed. While the first Frostpunk was focused on nature and the elements as the enemy, its sequel will force players to reckon with the destructive power of human nature and face "the demons of pride and being sure."

Throughout the Gamescom presentation highlighting Utopia Mode, Stokalski and Juszczyk both emphasized the major changes in scale that have taken place across the game. The first area this was shown in was Frostpunk 2's building mode, where now instead of building individual structures, players will be laying down entire districts in a single motion. This in turn created a need for developers to reassess the in-game economy, which is now based more around a supply and demand system instead of specific material requirements serving as costs; a housing district fulfills a need for shelter, but also requires things like heat and maintenance.

When players first begin a run in Utopia Mode, there will be a few different communities residing in the new settlement who each have varying opinions. In the demo, the two groups represented were the Engineers, who previously built and maintained the first game's Generators and believe technology is why people survive, and the Foragers, who think success is found through sacrifices and perpetual adaptation. Serving as steward of the city, players will have to be careful in how they balance the opinions of all its inhabitants.

As society grows, issues will naturally arise that need to be dealt with. A Research Institute serves as a more narrative-focused skill tree, where players can consult different communities to see what should be done about various problems. The demo posed the question of how best to increase food output, with the Foragers recommending biowaste technology. Once implemented, the use of child workers in the biowaste facility raised an even bigger question about the world: what's the role of children in this new world?

This debate can be settled at the Council Hall, where citizens can vote on new laws. In this particular instance, the question posed has two possible corresponding laws, leaving the responsibility either with the parents or the city to decide the future of the children. The former will put many children straight into the work force, while the latter will create a society-wide school system. Based on their ideals, self-sufficient Foragers would rather kids go straight to work, while the logic-loving Engineers see the value of an education. Players can lobby, pressure, and make promises to a reticent community, hopefully gaining over half the vote.

These decisions will snowball over time, contributing to the overall zeitgeist of the city and causing more fringe factions to form out of existing communities. The developers then skipped over to a different save set about two years into the city's future, which presents two new communities alongside the Engineers and Foragers: Technocrats and Ice Bloods, more extreme versions of the existing groups. After repealing the pro-educational law from two years prior, the Technocrats are outraged, raising tensions in the city as they threaten to split off from the main society.

There are many other aspects about Frostpunk 2 - like a structure that allows for exploration, several more communities, and methods of dealing with an uprising - weren't quite ready to be shown at Gamescom, but the elements featured in the demo did an excellent job of demonstrating the change in scale between the two franchise entries. With the original largely considered one of the most important indie releases of the past decade, this sequel certainly has a lot of expectations attached, but Frostpunk 2 seems like it will offer fans a much broader way to experience the world thirty years later.

Source: 11 bit studios/YouTube