Assuming the role of Steward in Frostpunk 2 is not an easy undertaking. Set 30 years after the apocalyptic cooling event of the citybuilding series’ first game, the population you’re responsible for has skyrocketed to thousands of people, meaning you must now create a flourishing New London society in a frozen hellscape. It’s arguably the most evil game on Game Pass, not because of the content itself, but what it does to the player.
Stewardship is a slippery slope. I began Frostpunk 2 with pure intentions — surely I would be able to create a version of New London where everyone was treated equitably. The next thing I knew, I was supporting child labor, turning a blind eye to religious fanatics performing dangerous rituals in the streets just because I had their political support, and exiling those opposed to my clearly flawless leadership.
While the original Frostpunk dealt with the minutiae of running a single city, its sequel takes a much broader scope. Instead of placing individual buildings, players now place down entire districts (like Housing or Extraction) at once. They still must manage things like heat and resources, but society is also beginning to take shape in earnest, which is where the Council comes into play. As Steward, you’ll run each session, proposing new laws about everything from housing distribution to procreation, and try to get enough votes for it to pass.
As the population of New London expands, there are various citizen factions that all have diverging ideas about what their new world should look like, and that’s where my psyche began to unravel. Frostpunk 2 co-director and design director Jakub Stokalski calls this descent into madness becoming “a prisoner of your own choices,” a key part of what the game is about. While it’s largely a city management sim, it also serves as a hard look at the hubris of utopian ideals.
It’s not just the laws you enact that cause strife — there will always be citizens upset with even the most rational of decisions, like having children go to school — but what you have to do to pass them. For each proposal, it’s almost guaranteed you’ll have to negotiate with at least one faction, which usually involves some kind of quid pro quo. Maybe you agree to pass a policy they want next, or to advance research on a new technology of their choice.
This very quickly causes a chain reaction of mental anguish. Sure, you can not follow through on promises, but that will quickly degrade your standing with that faction. Of course, so will holding up your end of the bargain, just with another group of citizens instead. Even when doing your best to choose the lesser of two evils, things can quickly spiral, especially since even the more sensible ideas (like quarantine) can have negative outcomes (learning citizens revile you for separating children and parents).
This spiraling is compounded even more by the way past agreements can quickly come back to bite you in the ass. There have been multiple occasions in which I realized I desperately needed to pass a law, but had already promised the next council session would be dedicated to some absurd policy I don’t even believe in. It became increasingly hard to rationalize these choices for myself, and my instinct to do the right thing was quickly replaced by a desperate need for self-preservation.
Not only did I start funding research and backing laws that were bad for the environment, harsh on my citizens, and sometimes just empirically evil, I didn’t even have a backbone about it. Because of my increasingly-tangled web of promises, I became a professional flip-flopper — not to brag, but I have the achievement for changing a policy to another one, then passing the previous one again.
I realize that much of the hardship I’ve described may not make Frostpunk 2 sound appealing, but that anguish is precisely what makes the game great. Just like Frostpunk, the sequel is merciless by design, meaning that everything you do manage to accomplish is a cause for celebration. As the cold continues to rage on and citizens riot in the streets, even the smallest victories give a glimmer of hope — and a much grander sense of achievement than they would in another city builder.
The game deftly captures the brutality of winter just as much as it does the harshness of the human heart, asking just how far you’ll go to preserve your power. If you don’t believe that Frostpunk 2 will turn you into a cold-blooded, selfish ruler, try it for yourself.
