Frostpunk has got my attention. It's a city-builder, but a city-builder that revolves around a heat source in the middle of an ice age, and where Discontent and Hope are the two most prominent status bars on the UI after the thermometer.
They're marketing it as a "society survival" game. You know how in survival sims you need you to keep your character warm, fed, and watered? Same idea here. Except in Frostpunk, the city is your character, while the citizens serve as your character's voice. You can expect them to speak up in good and bad ways, because the game wants to see what you are willing to do to survive when humanity is pushed to the brink of extinction. You are, after all, building The Last City on Earth.
Your city, New London, starts with a single—frozen and abandoned—coal-burning heat generator. You begin, of course, by getting that bad boy up and running. From there, you grow outward in a tightly packed spiral. You build a few fragile shelters. Then work your way up to building a full-fledged steam-powered city. But Frostpunk is made by the folks that made This War of Mine. So you can expect to spend a lot of time involved in social issues (simple societal laws, troubled individual, mob mentality), and not just steeped in coal-burning logistics. Starting society over always makes for good strategic fun. Starting society over in -30 below freezing is a whole other thing. Sign me up.
Frostpunk launches April 28 on PC.
