How the everlasting winter became your fiercest enemy in Frostpunk - the game that uniquely blends a post-apocalyptic city-builder with a society survival simulation propelled by human-centered narrative

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How the everlasting winter became your fiercest enemy in Frostpunk - the game that uniquely blends a post-apocalyptic city-builder with a society survival simulation propelled by human-centered narrative

11 bit studios

3 thg 6, 2021

Frostpunk is the first society survival game. You take up the mantle of the last city on Earth’s ruler to play across various game modes. Not only do you have to expand your metropolis, you must also take care of people by balancing and fine-tuning two factors: Hope and Discontent, both of which are affected by the decisions you make or the laws you introduce to shape the struggling society. Next to the main campaign - enriched with the narrative of New London’s rise from the frozen wasteland, unveiled across four scenarios - Frostpunk offers unlimited replayability with Endless Mode. Here you can play on eight maps with different terrain, ever-changing weather, and challenges in three further Modes. Endurance serves as an ultimate test of your building, managing, and survival skills. Serenity is for enjoying the pure art of building without the pressure of dwindling resources and in the Builders Mode, a lack of the Generator provides players with a different type of challenge.

FROSTPUNK EPIC STORE BLOG 01

But the Frostpunk DNA wouldn’t be as unique as it is now without extreme weather conditions. Winter wasn’t within the initial idea that sparked the game that morphed into Frostpunk after numerous iterations. “We looked into different directions after our previous game, This War of Mine. Less dramatic, less serious, and harsh that would let us focus more on core gameplay mechanics or a distinguishable art style. That’s how the idea of a steampunk city-builder game was born” - recalls Przemyslaw Marszal, who was responsible for the art direction of the whole 11 bit studios portfolio at the time, and who is the company’s current CEO. At that point in time, the idea was more about steady industrialization rather than desperate survival. The name of the first Frostpunk prototype was an unmistakable highlight of its direction - Industrial.

“The prototype was very economical. It had steampunk vibes, city-building gameplay, so it was sort of what we liked it to be. But the message and the vision that binds everything together weren’t there” - remembers Michal Drozdowski, a creative director overseeing the design of Frostpunk and all studio internal and external projects. The snow came to be the tool to transform an industrial economic game into humankind versus nature fight for survival. In Frostpunk, players have to constantly be aware of the temperature, provide heaters across the city and dig coal to fuel up its warmth-beating heart - the Generator.

FROSTPUNK EPIC STORE BLOG 02

“I was thinking about strong-hearted men. People like sailors, mountaineers, whale hunters, or oil-rig workers, captured in a struggle with nature as the ultimate obstacle and their worst nightmare. In Poland, where we are based, we used to have pretty strong winters, and we surely know the chilling taste of sturdy cold weather. So winter seemed to be an interesting enemy for the players. Especially combined with the heat and its power in that situation and a steam technology used to generate it” - Drozdowski explained. From there, core adjectives to describe Frostpunk were: cold, city, steampunk, living society, serious theme, and Victorian setting. “But there is one other ingredient - uniqueness which makes you compose the whole game from unexpected and exciting bits. Like a circular icy hole with a huge Generator in the centre or a radial-laid city that grew to be immediately recognizable and iconic among the community. Getting everything to work properly at once in the actual game is like solving a puzzle. And coming to that result involves a lot of research, drawing & conceptualization. In general, a lot of trial and error processes” - sums up Marszal.

We firmly believe Frostpunk has everything we want to embrace in our games. A meaningful, thought-provoking theme, responsible design, and state-of-the-art delivery. And we are even more thrilled to see it available now on Epic Game Store. For more information follow 11 bit studios and Frostpunk Twitter accounts.