Do I recommend this game in general - yes. It's a beautiful and engaging game I've already sunk 23 hours into.

Do I recommend this game as a Frostpunk sequel - no, not at all.

Don't get me wrong if you liked the first game you'll probably like this one too. The graphics are gorgeous, the music and cinematics are stellar, and the vibe is the same. There's obvious references to the first game and it's set in the same world, so there's a lot there for the fans of the first game, but that's about it. The gameplay, scope, and soul of the game are all very different.

The gameplay is complex but thorough, meaning there's quite the learning curve to playing the game, and the tutorial basically doesn't exist, there's a help folder that points you in the right direction which does most of what you need it to do but it's very much a game that drops you in the deep end with a stunning animatic and lets you figure it out. This was fine in the first game (which was much simpler) but is a bit of a nipple twister here for two reasons - one, the game is more complex, and two, the game is NOTHING like the first game in terms of gameplay.

Now, obviously a sequel can't just be a copy/paste of the original, and I can get behind the changes when it comes to the story and world stuff, but the complete change in gameplay and the introduction of the half-baked political system feels unnecessary, if not detrimental. None of your skills from the first game will help you in the slightest in the second game. Instead of small teams where you need to pass laws to minmax their efforts and take care of them, you now have Game of Thrones Lite with snow, where most of your time is spent navigating between multiple settlements, trading favours to get laws passed to balance the economy of tens of thousands of people, and trying to remember which faction you promised what so you don't annoy someone. And honestly? It's kind of boring. It's engaging, you feel like you're doing stuff, but the gameplay itself is a bit meh. But also the fact that you have a lot of "stuff" to do is a little bit of a problem in this one IMO, because the first game demanded a lot of your mental CPU as well, but each of those campaigns lasted 1-4 hours, whilst story mode here is 10-12. That's a long time to be spinning plates so many plates.

This is where we cross into spoiler territory for the story, and here's where I say being a fan of the original game will do you a service. The original base story of the first game was, you're a group of people fleeing the freezing apocalypse. You build your settlement and survive a storm, and that's it. The story here is similar, except now it's 30 years later and you're taking over from the original Captain of New London. Civil war will break out between two of your factions, and you fix it in one of three linear ways. None of your choices really matter and the endings are all the same unless you fail in which case all the failures are the same. The game even straight up tells you at the end that your choice don't matter, you'll die soon, and the real question is how long the city will last when you're gone. This kind of annoyed me but honestly, it's already better than the basic story of the first game, so I'm not mad. The DLCs are where it was at for the first game and I'm assuming this one will be the same, time will tell.

Overall I would say this game is engaging, interesting, beautiful, well written, and made with love, but also that it feels confused. It's like half of them wanted to make Frostpunk 2 but the rest wanted to make a different game altogether so they tried to compromise. It happens in other areas too. Is it a strategic political base builder where the opinions of each faction and individual matter (in which case the dept of characters is great but the linear story throttles the potential nuance of the factions), or is it a thought-provoking story with a harsh morality system (which definitely exists, but feels underdeveloped and bogged down by the political stuff). Does it want to be gritty, sinister, and emotive, with people running their blood through their lamps and cutting off their limbs for snow-breaking prosthetics (which also exists and is wonderful worldbuilding, but sparse and ultimately only for flavour), or does it want to be an inobtrusive city sim with minimal actual drama and angst (which is 95% of the gameplay). It (perhaps intentionally?) feels like the story of the game - like it's trying to appease four radically different sets of criteria and failing to make anyone happy, but winning on charisma alone.

Now again that isn't to say I don't like the game, I do - it's a beautiful city sim with some cool world building and music I will happily listen to for another 12 hours. It just doesn't feel like a Frostpunk game, and I fear if you go into it expecting it to, you'll be sorely disappointed. Meet the game where it's at and yeah, it's a decent few hours. Most important, the devs have a good history, are engaging and responsive with their community, and seem genuinely eager for us to not only buy the game, but enjoy it after purchase as well. That's worth it all for me.

Finally, little gripes that I really hope they fix. Some of these might be deal breakers for you but give it a few weeks and they'll probably be dealt with, I'll strike them out if they do get fixed:

- Oh my lord I HATE the forced camera move, and I hate the select boxes. I swear an hour of my game time so far has been spent trying to get my camera back where I want it so I can click the district or hub I want to build instead of the skill tree icon overlapping it, or I can select the right hex on the 3D terrain to build on. The camera is more a hinderance than the frost. It's not The Last Guardian bad but it's bad and I am so sick of chasing buttons. Similarly there's a lot of times when you're just trying to place something or move and the info pop-up box decides it's gonna take over the whole screen and you're back to chasing. There's gotta be a neater way to do it.

- Conversely there are times when you're prompted to do something (usually enact or repeal a law) but it will give you no information about what that law is or does, you just have to agree or decline on the spot and hope for the best. For a game that insists on giving you all the info all the time, this feels like an oversight. Similarly some information will come and go like how you can't see your current currency on the research screen where you're supposed to spend it on research.

- Please, please, dev lords, *please* give us the ability to hold shift to build multiple buildings of the same types, I can only click through the whole menu (chasing stuff the whole time) so many times when trying to establish watch towers and research facilities.

- WHERE DID THE SOUNDS GO. There's a lot of information on screen all the time now, so when you get the pop up in the corner telling you the scouts are done with their expedition it's really easy to miss. It doesn't stay on screen long and you get all of your information in the same place, as opposed to noise alerts like in the first game to tell you the cooldown was done for the laws or and expedition was done. Gimmie my sounds back! We need the audio cues, it genuinely makes the game harder to play not having them.

All of that said, I'm still gonna wrap up now and go play some more. For all my nit-picking, I do love it. £40 well spent!

Do I recommend this game in general - yes. It's a beautiful and engaging game I've already sunk 23 hours into. Do I recommend this game as a Frostpunk sequel - no, not at all. Don't get me wrong if you liked the first game you'll probably like this one too. The graphics are gorgeous, the music and cinematics are stellar, and the vibe is the same. There's obvious references to the first game and it's set in the same world, so there's a lot there for the fans of the first game, but that's about it. The gameplay, scope, and soul of the game are all very different. The gameplay is complex but thorough, meaning there's quite the learning curve to playing the game, and the tutorial basically doesn't exist, there's a help folder that points you in the right direction which does most of what you need it to do but it's very much a game that drops you in the deep end with a stunning animatic and lets you figure it out. This was fine in the first game (which was much simpler) but is a bit of a nipple twister here for two reasons - one, the game is more complex, and two, the game is NOTHING like the first game in terms of gameplay. Now, obviously a sequel can't just be a copy/paste of the original, and I can get behind the changes when it comes to the story and world stuff, but the complete change in gameplay and the introduction of the half-baked political system feels unnecessary, if not detrimental. None of your skills from the first game will help you in the slightest in the second game. Instead of small teams where you need to pass laws to minmax their efforts and take care of them, you now have Game of Thrones Lite with snow, where most of your time is spent navigating between multiple settlements, trading favours to get laws passed to balance the economy of tens of thousands of people, and trying to remember which faction you promised what so you don't annoy someone. And honestly? It's kind of boring. It's engaging, you feel like you're doing stuff, but the gameplay itself is a bit meh. But also the fact that you have a lot of "stuff" to do is a little bit of a problem in this one IMO, because the first game demanded a lot of your mental CPU as well, but each of those campaigns lasted 1-4 hours, whilst story mode here is 10-12. That's a long time to be spinning plates so many plates. This is where we cross into spoiler territory for the story, and here's where I say being a fan of the original game will do you a service. The original base story of the first game was, you're a group of people fleeing the freezing apocalypse. You build your settlement and survive a storm, and that's it. The story here is similar, except now it's 30 years later and you're taking over from the original Captain of New London. Civil war will break out between two of your factions, and you fix it in one of three linear ways. None of your choices really matter and the endings are all the same unless you fail in which case all the failures are the same. The game even straight up tells you at the end that your choice don't matter, you'll die soon, and the real question is how long the city will last when you're gone. This kind of annoyed me but honestly, it's already better than the basic story of the first game, so I'm not mad. The DLCs are where it was at for the first game and I'm assuming this one will be the same, time will tell. Overall I would say this game is engaging, interesting, beautiful, well written, and made with love, but also that it feels confused. It's like half of them wanted to make Frostpunk 2 but the rest wanted to make a different game altogether so they tried to compromise. It happens in other areas too. Is it a strategic political base builder where the opinions of each faction and individual matter (in which case the dept of characters is great but the linear story throttles the potential nuance of the factions), or is it a thought-provoking story with a harsh morality system (which definitely exists, but feels underdeveloped and bogged down by the political stuff). Does it want to be gritty, sinister, and emotive, with people running their blood through their lamps and cutting off their limbs for snow-breaking prosthetics (which also exists and is wonderful worldbuilding, but sparse and ultimately only for flavour), or does it want to be an inobtrusive city sim with minimal actual drama and angst (which is 95% of the gameplay). It (perhaps intentionally?) feels like the story of the game - like it's trying to appease four radically different sets of criteria and failing to make anyone happy, but winning on charisma alone. Now again that isn't to say I don't like the game, I do - it's a beautiful city sim with some cool world building and music I will happily listen to for another 12 hours. It just doesn't feel like a Frostpunk game, and I fear if you go into it expecting it to, you'll be sorely disappointed. Meet the game where it's at and yeah, it's a decent few hours. Most important, the devs have a good history, are engaging and responsive with their community, and seem genuinely eager for us to not only buy the game, but enjoy it after purchase as well. That's worth it all for me. Finally, little gripes that I really hope they fix. Some of these might be deal breakers for you but give it a few weeks and they'll probably be dealt with, I'll strike them out if they do get fixed: - Oh my lord I HATE the forced camera move, and I hate the select boxes. I swear an hour of my game time so far has been spent trying to get my camera back where I want it so I can click the district or hub I want to build instead of the skill tree icon overlapping it, or I can select the right hex on the 3D terrain to build on. The camera is more a hinderance than the frost. It's not The Last Guardian bad but it's bad and I am so sick of chasing buttons. Similarly there's a lot of times when you're just trying to place something or move and the info pop-up box decides it's gonna take over the whole screen and you're back to chasing. There's gotta be a neater way to do it. - Conversely there are times when you're prompted to do something (usually enact or repeal a law) but it will give you no information about what that law is or does, you just have to agree or decline on the spot and hope for the best. For a game that insists on giving you all the info all the time, this feels like an oversight. Similarly some information will come and go like how you can't see your current currency on the research screen where you're supposed to spend it on research. - Please, please, dev lords, *please* give us the ability to hold shift to build multiple buildings of the same types, I can only click through the whole menu (chasing stuff the whole time) so many times when trying to establish watch towers and research facilities. - WHERE DID THE SOUNDS GO. There's a lot of information on screen all the time now, so when you get the pop up in the corner telling you the scouts are done with their expedition it's really easy to miss. It doesn't stay on screen long and you get all of your information in the same place, as opposed to noise alerts like in the first game to tell you the cooldown was done for the laws or and expedition was done. Gimmie my sounds back! We need the audio cues, it genuinely makes the game harder to play not having them. All of that said, I'm still gonna wrap up now and go play some more. For all my nit-picking, I do love it. £40 well spent!