Testing your strategy game, survival, and city-building skills, the icy, post-apocalyptic Frostpunk is still an absolute gem. Frostpunk 2, released just seven months ago, made a lot of strides forward, but unfortunately hasn’t resonated with fans quite as much as the original. Despite this blip – which developer 11 bit is admittedly working very hard to rectify, I should add – it’s been confirmed that a new project “set in the Frostpunk universe” is in the works.
While this sounds morbid, I always love a city building game that’s framed around some kind of disaster or apocalypse – sure, whacking up glass-filled skyscrapers in Cities Skylines is great, but I love the grit and aesthetic of series like Endzone and, of course, Frostpunk. Despite the grander scope of Frostpunk 2, it fell short of players’ expectations when it launched. Thanks to it already receiving a barrage of updates, and having a positive-sounding roadmap for the future, I think that it’ll eventually evolve into the sequel fans wanted. But right now, the original remains higher rated and even trumps its predecessor when it comes to its Steam player count.
Thankfully, this bump in the road hasn’t convinced 11 bit to abandon this brilliant, frozen universe. Not only is the Polish studio supporting Frostpunk 2 right now, and preparing for The Alters release date later this year, but it’s just confirmed that it’s now in the early stages of developing a new Frostpunk game.
“As a developer and publisher, we intend to diversify both the scale of our projects and their development timelines,” says Przemysław Marszał, 11 bit’s president of the management board, in a press release published for investors. “This also means capitalising on near-term, financially attractive opportunities. This underlies our decision to initiate production on the next project set in the Frostpunk universe, which we plan to launch as early as 2027.”
That’s right, the next Frostpunk game could be just a couple of years away, save for any delays. Given the success of the original, and the experience gained making its sequel, you’d expect this to be a straight up Frostpunk 3 that treads on similar, city-building survival game ground. However, Marszał’s wording does leave things pretty open – I think the premise and world of Frostpunk is one that could transfer over to different genres to great effect.
As well as this new Frostpunk game that’s destined for 2027, 11bit has also “commenced development on a larger-scale title, targeted for release in 2029,” but this appears to not be tied to the snowy survival series.
If you’re a fan of Frostpunk, then you may also find some similarly gripping experiences in our lists of the best apocalypse games and best strategy games.
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