2018’s Frostpunk was a breath of contemporary air by combining city-building with survival facets. It was a superb match, made all the higher by its distinctive alternate historical past world that takes place after a volcanic winter. It obtained a stellar console port a 12 months later, and now, six years later, its sequel has come to PS5. Fortunately, Frostpunk 2 is one other profitable port that manages to make a posh technique recreation a blast on consoles.
The most important distinction from the unique recreation and Frostpunk 2 is its important improve in scale. Whereas speedy survival in its harsh post-apocalyptic world was unsure within the first recreation, its sequel finds you coping with a lot bigger cities and focusing extra on the duty of administration than earlier than. There’s nonetheless simply as a lot technique as earlier than, nevertheless it’s on a grander degree, and also you’ve received to consider issues on the macro degree — your selections impacting whole districts and enormous sects of individuals relatively than particular person buildings. It’s a superb technique to naturally construct the sport out, as a sequel ought to, with out getting overly within the weeds with too many mechanics.
This alteration additionally lends itself to one of many recreation’s most attention-grabbing mechanics, which is the addition of political factions. These communities every have their very own concepts as to how issues needs to be run and gained’t be scared to stage protests and even shut down districts if mandatory. You’ll at all times be at odds with some factions, so that you’ll have to return to compromises at occasions and negotiate with factions to get in your aspect in an effort to cross legal guidelines. It’s a rewarding operate, and one which retains you in your edge as you attempt to preserve your metropolis freed from illness and crime.
As for the port, the PS5 model of Frostpunk 2 has an in-depth and easy-to-follow tutorial, which is a should for getting used to taking part in a city-building recreation with a controller. This won’t be wanted for many who performed the unique recreation’s console port, nevertheless it actually helped me come to grips with the controls. There are nonetheless plenty of menu layers to navigate and buttons to recollect, which suggests this may at all times be excellent to play on a PC with a keyboard and mouse, nevertheless it actually will get the job accomplished and may be very playable.
One of many greatest points I discover with plenty of PC ports is that the person interface is much too small for tv play. Fortunately, 11 Bit Studios has included two UI choices, and whereas it defaults to “Massive,” I’d advocate taking part in on “Large” so all the pieces is legible from a distance. There may be additionally an non-compulsory setting to make use of PSSR upscaling for PS5 Professional house owners. The sport seems to be nice with this enabled, and you may as well revert to Unreal’s temporal tremendous decision if you want.
Frostpunk 2 (PS5) Overview: Ultimate Verdict
Whereas it’ll by no means be optimum taking part in a dense city-building recreation on a console, Frostpunk 2 is the newest instance that it may be accomplished nicely. The survival recreation remains to be thrilling to play with a controller, even when it would take some time for the controls to turn into second nature. With correct UI scaling and PSSR help, 11 Bit Studios has accomplished a terrific job with this port.
A stellar sequel that builds on the unique
UI scaling and PSSR help
A ton of depth
Studying curve can nonetheless be steep regardless of robust tutorial
