Frostpunk

What to Know

Critics Recommend

Average Score

Total Reviews: 73

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Frostpunk is a truly harrowing strategy game requiring you to make difficult decisions to survive inhospitable conditions. It’s a thrilling twist on the city builder genre, and well worth your time.

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Critics Recommend

Critic Reviews: 73

Critics Consensus

# Reviews: 73

Frostpunk is a truly harrowing strategy game requiring you to make difficult decisions to survive inhospitable conditions. It's a thrilling twist on the city builder genre, and well worth your time.

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Awards & Recognition

Critic Reviews for Frostpunk

Reviews

High Score - 95/100

Low Score - 50/100

Silver TIER

53% of scored reviews fell within the range of 86 to 92 / 100

Caley Roark (IGN)

9/10

“Frostpunk deftly mixes a variety of thematic ideas and gameplay elements into an engaging and unique, if occasionally unintuitive, strategy game.”

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GameCentral (Metro GameCentral)

9/10

“It may have the framework of an ordinary city builder but there’s an insightful, and frequently disturbing, philosophical message at the heart of this cross-genre classic.”

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Brittany Vincent (Shacknews)

8/10

“The game does lose a bit of its luster after you beat the main scenario, but the two additional stories do put what you learned to the test. I’m eager to see what new situations 11 Bit Studios adds to the Frostpunk in the future, as the concept has a ton of untapped potential.”

Read full review

**Read all 73 critic reviews on the desktop version of VSG.

Read the Reviews (73 total)

Outlet	Author	Score	Date	Quote	Read
33bits	Fernando Sánchez	90 / 100	10-11-2019	Frostpunk is like catching a city builder, like Maxis’s famous Sim City but where our moral decisions can leave a trail of corpses along the way and ultimately fail means our end, or the end of the entire city. It is simply brilliant how moral decisions have been implemented with such great consequences in an almost innocent type of genre such as construction and city management, but 11 bit Studios has managed to do so, and in a very satisfactory way. Highly recommended.	Read review
3DNews	Денис Щенников	9 / 10	04-30-2018	Frostpunk is not as complex city builder as it could be, but an engaging one for sure. What is more important, it will challenge your moral principles like no other game before.	Read review
Ars Technica	Steven Strom	Recommended	04-24-2018	Frostpunk is a city builder focused on story and setting over creativity. Minor issues hold it back but not enough to ruin its grim vision of alternate history. Buy it.	Read review
Attack of the Fanboy	Brandon Adams	4.5 / 5 stars	10-10-2019	If you have yet to play Frostpunk and enjoy city-builders you should absolutely give the console edition a look. It’s a worthy port of a phenomenal game, and I hope to see more games brought over from PC given this sort of love and attention in the future.	Read review
AusGamers	Kosta Andreadis	9 / 10	04-30-2018	One of the most intense, beautiful, and emotionally resonant games that features arranging housing and streets ever made.	Read review
BaziCenter	Danial Karimi Tar	9 / 10	10-13-2019	Your most important challenge in the latest release from 11 Bit Studios is that you always have to make ethical decisions that affects your people directly. Putting the children to work? Using dead people’s organs before sending their bodies to mass graves? Sacrificing some to save others? And so on. These are the decisions that you have to make if you are to lead your people through frozen wastelands of Frostpunk.	Read review
CGMagazine	Preston Dozsa	8.5 / 10	04-23-2018	Frostpunk is a brutal city-builder that shines thanks to difficult choices, an original world and engaging gameplay.	Read review
Chalgyr’s Game Room	Nick Herber	9 / 10	10-15-2019	With dozens of different selections for technology research, an interesting and almost living personality to your city, and heaps of frozen trouble, FrostPunk will challenge every fiber of your strategic being and it. is. glorious. I am not entirely sure I can adequately define the addictive brutality found in FrostPunk as it is genius in its drive to freeze you out. FrostPunk is worth your time on every level … the visceral struggle of a lost people working their way through the frozen tundra is incredibly relatable and it is terrifying.	Read review
COGconnected	Stephanie Sung	86 / 100	10-28-2019	Frostpunk is, without a doubt, not an easy game and requires extensive strategizing and multiple playthroughs to succeed.	Read review
Critical Hit	Darryn Bonthuys	9 / 10	10-10-2019	Frostpunk is an ingenious blend of city building systems and morally ambiguous decision making. Its mechanics are streamlined enough to be easy to grasp, but it’s tension and demanding nature make it an apocalyptic experience you shouldn’t skip.	Read review
Cubed3	Josh Di Falco	9 / 10	05-30-2020	Frostpunk is quite simply one of the best city-building experiences on the PlayStation 4 with a highly detailed narrative written for four huge campaigns. The sadness in there only being four campaigns is a true testament to the team at 11 Bit Studios, as they have crafted such a memorable experience, with gut-wrenching decisions at every turn. The savagery of the game can have long-lasting effects that can carry into the subsequent play-throughs, as the memories of what arose from making previous decisions can sway future decisions down other pathways. For those who wish to experience a more laid-back ‘Sim City’ like experience, then this title may not be the right title to jump into. However after experiencing this, it will be easy to feel anxious to see whatever the team behind it has in store next.	Read review
Cultured Vultures	Jimmy Donnellan	8.5 / 10	04-27-2018	While not without some faults and limitations, Frostpunk is an often harrowing parable on society that makes you the monster without you even realising it.	Read review
Daily Mirror	James Ide	4 / 5 stars	07-03-2018	I thought I’d pretty much seen everything in the strategy gene and I’m delighted to say Frostpunk while hard and unforgiving is rewarding and a breathe of fresh frozen air to of the strategy genre, with and great story. Underneath the cold harsh tone, difficulty, and slightly tricky interface lie the warm beating heart of a strong and surprisingly deep game.	Read review
Destructoid	Patrick Hancock	8.5 / 10	05-01-2018	Frostpunk is such a bizarre game. Playing through it mechanically and logistically leads to a relatively standard resource manager. However, by investing yourself in the town and the people within it, you allow in the crushing weight of the decisions you’ll have to make and the emotional consequences that follow. They may not be affecting real people, but treating it as such is what this game is all about. It’s an emotional roller coaster that will likely leave you more defeated after “winning” than when you first started, and that is incredible.	Read review
Digiato	Shayan Karami	84 / 100	04-22-2018	After This War of Mine and its expansion, 11bit studios has done it again. Great attention to details, multiple choice options and artistic and technical design are the reasons that make Frostpunk a truly joyful experience for people who seek a truly different city builder.	Read review
Eurogamer	Robert Purchese	Recommended	04-27-2018	A thrilling but thin survival twist on the city builder genre, oozing dark charisma and political dilemmas.	Read review
Game Informer	Matt Bertz	8.8 / 10	04-23-2018	Don’t come to Frostpunk if you want sunshine, unicorns, and happy outcomes. This is a bleak game about making difficult decisions to survive inhospitable conditions	Read review
Gameblog	Camille Allard	8 / 10	04-30-2018	Frostpunk is a very good management game. Intelligent, dark and mature, its major flaw is its lack of replay value and the lack of impact of moral choices. Despite that, it’s clearly a must have for all management/survival games lovers.	Read review
GameCrate	Angelo D’Argenio	8.5 / 10	04-23-2018	Frostpunk is one of the best sim games to come out in decades. If you want a more bleak and depressing twist on the age old genre of city management, this is your game.	Read review
Gamefa	Mohammad Aria Moghaddam	8.5 / 10	06-10-2018	Another amazing game from developers of This War of Mine. Beautiful story, challenging decisions, unique art style, variant gameplay mechanics and deep survival elements, made Frostpunk one of the best survival game of this generation and a must-have game for fans of deep dark challenging survival games. Don’t miss it!	Read review
Gameplanet	Ben Wilson	9 / 10	04-27-2018	Frostpunk is a bleak and challenging colony builder/survival title that will either give you more respect for your boss, or have you rallying your co-workers to oust them.	Read review
GamePro	Manuel Fritsch	89 / 100	10-10-2019	Morally rousing mix of strategy and survival, which convinces with clever comfort functions and good menu navigation even on console.	Read review
Gamers Heroes	Johnny Hurricane	8 / 10	10-10-2019	Frostpunk is not for the faint of heart. However, if you think you can handle the stressful job of being a leader, you can easily lose a couple of nights to the game.	Read review
Gamersky	不倒翁蜀黍	8.8 / 10	04-29-2018	Frostpunk is a fantastic city-builder which contains tough survival elements, and you can expect to be impressed by the shocking scenarios.	Read review
GameSkinny	Sergey_3847	9 / 10	04-23-2018	Both in technical execution and gameplay design Frostpunk is practically flawless. It’s incredibly complex and may create an illusion of great moral pressure, and that’s the beauty of it!	Read review
GameSpew	Chris McMullen	8 / 10	05-08-2018	If doom and gloom isn’t your thing then Frostpunk won’t appeal and you’re better off with a less misery-drenched city-builder such as the excellent Cities: Skylines. But if you’re a sucker for the punishing post-apocalyptic (and this game can certainly dish it out) then Frostpunk’s bleak winter wonderland will keep you hooked, turning you into a horrible, horrible person in the process.	Read review
GameSpot	Daniel Starkey	9 / 10	04-24-2018	Frostpunk is a brutal city-survival sim that thrives on forcing you to make tough choices in harrowing scenarios.	Read review
GameWatcher	Marcello Perricone	9 / 10	05-09-2018	Frostpunk is definitely one of the most engaging strategy games around, and one that deserves to be experienced.	Read review
GamingBolt	Ravi Sinha	9 / 10	05-02-2018	Frostpunk is a captivating experience, whether you’re seeking an emotionally effective story or a solid city-building survival game. Even with all the despair, each decision feels like it matters and had weight.	Read review
GBAtemp	Taleweaver	8.6 / 10	05-21-2018	It’s just an amazing experience. Unfortunately, you’re going to have to take my word for it. The screens don’t do it justice. The reviews and gameplay doesn’t do it justice. Actually playing it yourself gives a sort of constant concern for your inhabitants, which makes the tough decisions really nailbitingly hard ones.	Read review
God is a Geek	Chris Hyde	9 / 10	10-10-2019	Frostpunk Console Edition is the happiest I’ve been staring despair in the face. A fantastic city-builder where you really care about the people you’re trying to save.	Read review
GRYOnline.pl	Jakub Mirowski	8.5 / 10	04-22-2018	Give Frostpunk a chance – you’ll soon find out that this is yet another ambitious project from 11 bit studios that is greater than the sum of its parts. This very atmospheric “survival strategy” deserves a success and the developers should know that they are on the right path of achieving it.	Read review
Hardcore Gamer	Cory Wells	4 / 5 stars	04-30-2018	Frostpunk is a unique strategy game that offers both an engaging and addicting element.	Read review
IGN	Caley Roark	9 / 10	04-25-2018	Frostpunk deftly mixes a variety of thematic ideas and gameplay elements into an engaging and unique, if occasionally unintuitive, strategy game.	Read review
IGN Spain	Carlos G. Gurpegui	8.5 / 10	04-23-2018	Frostpunk can get to your heart and let it frozen just with a few simple decisions and that’s amazing.	Read review
Metro GameCentral	GameCentral	9 / 10	10-10-2019	It may have the framework of an ordinary city builder but there’s an insightful, and frequently disturbing, philosophical message at the heart of this cross-genre classic.	Read review
MonsterVine	Shannon P. Drake	4 / 5 stars	05-03-2018	If you want some amazing, bleak, and depressing world-building, Frostpunk is definitely your jam.	Read review
New Game Network	Josh Hinke	74 / 100	05-03-2018	Frostpunk is a solid entry into the city-builder genre with a unique survival twist, and one that’s bound to appeal to those who have enjoyed similar games. Still, it lacks the personality and depth to win over anyone who doesn’t already love micromanaging workforces and watching numbers go up.	Read review
NoobFeed	Bogdan Robert Mateș	82 / 100	04-28-2018	Frostpunk is an engrossing survival city builder that doesn’t shun away from requiring difficult decisions on the player’s part.	Read review
OnlySP	Damien Lawardorn	3 / 5 stars	04-27-2018	Few games are as unremittingly grim as Frostpunk. In this world of snow and sacrifice, success comes rarely, and hope is but a fleeting memory. Failure is almost assured, and the lessons learned in that process can only be applied to a certain degree. Additionally, some elements intended to be challenging can be exasperating. Nevertheless, these gripes are relatively minor and do little to detract from the engrossing atmosphere. Although the title is unlikely to be remembered as a benchmark or future model for the city builder genre, it stands out from the pack by daring to carve out a wholly unique niche and refusing to pander to the mass-market mentality.	Read review
Oyungezer Online	Eser Güven	7.8 / 10	04-26-2018	Atmospherically, Frostpunk is very good at making you feel the cold and the desperation that comes along with it. But since you don’t really get to create emotional ties with the people you manage, you don’t feel the emotional weights of the choices you make either.	Read review
Pardis Game	Shahab Zareei	9 / 10	05-31-2018	Frostpunk is both a fresh and intense experience in its genre. It is both a competent city-builder and an engaiging survivor game. Its beautiful art and music go very well with its settings and story. Your choices matter and each has its consequences, and pitch your senses of morality and reason against each other. The gameplay is challenging and fun by itself, yet new challenges are presented throughout the game to keep things fresh. The only downside is that these challenges lose their element of surprise after the first playthrough.	Read review
PC Gamer	Christopher Livingston	89 / 100	04-23-2018	Frostpunk is a stressful, stylish, and addictive survival management game filled with incredibly difficult choices.	Read review
PC Invasion	Paul Younger	8 / 10	04-24-2018	Frost Punk will test your city management skills to the max and keep you coming back for more.	Read review
PCGamesN	Julian Benson	8 / 10	03-22-2018	11 Bit Studios have done marvellous work on evoking the symbolism of the engine giving life.	Read review
Player2.net.au	Glenn Gugliotti	Recommended	07-05-2018	If you are into these non-combat/city building types of strategy games, I highly highly highly recommend Frostpunk. The gameplay is very engaging, the sound is amazing and the game is just stunning to look at. Just so you know, expect your people to die, because they will. So, so many of them will die.	Read review
PlayStation LifeStyle	Jarrett Green	9 / 10	10-10-2019	To say Frostpunk is fun would be like saying watching The Road is fun. It’s engaging, challenging, inventive and unique. It cleverly re-purposes old genre tropes, and embraces the rigors of micromanaging dire people in a dark time with such earnest that it’s hard not to get charmed into hours of sadistic yet satisfying struggle.	Read review
PlayStation Universe	John-Paul Jones	9 / 10	10-10-2019	A stellar societal strategy game with a dark, moralistic centre, Frostpunk is a rare genre effort where your actions linger with you long after your time with it has finished. This is tactical, though well-meaning nihilism at its best, and is an easy recommendation to those who want their grey matter tested as much as their heart.	Read review
PowerUp!	James Wood	9 / 10	05-20-2018	The impact Frostpunk can have on the player is truly remarkable.	Read review
PSX Brasil	Francisco Maia	94 / 100	10-11-2019	Whether it’s the setting and mature themes presented or the diverse and complex gameplay mechanics, Frostpunk sets an example on how strategy games should be. The immersion is so deep that it is difficult to realize the lost (but well invested) hours. It is a game that deserves your attention and it’s absolutely worth of your time.	Read review
Push Square	John Cal McCormick	8 / 10	10-10-2019	At its best, Frostpunk provides a tense, nail-biting experience like few others in the genre. It’s not about building an empire, or creating a beautiful cityscape, but simply doing what you need to do to guide your people through what at first seems like insurmountable adversity. There’s a few niggling issues, but the feeling you get from surviving the campaign is one of utter, unbridled joy, and it’s that feeling more than any other why we have absolutely no qualms about recommending Frostpunk to you.	Read review
Rapid Reviews UK	Chuck Osborn	4.5 / 5 stars	10-19-2019	Being in charge of a virtual city (and, I imagine, a real city) can be stressful, but rewarding. Take Cities: Skylines for example; there’s the pressure of keeping people happy, but the fun of constructing your own city and seeing it thrive. Now, add being situated in a frozen wasteland where people need warmth and food to survive. The pressure is significantly heightened, and this is what Frostpunk is all about.	Read review
Rock, Paper, Shotgun	Xalavier Nelson Jr	Recommended	04-23-2018	Frostpunk may be one of the most tense, exciting city building survival games on PC, but for a game with such an emphasis on innate justice, and heat, it leaves you surprisingly cold.	Read review
Screen Rant	Connor Trinske	4.5 / 5 stars	10-15-2019	Despite its graphical compromises, Frostpunk: Console Edition is an excellent way to experience one of the best games of last year.	Read review
SECTOR.sk	Branislav Kohút	8 / 10	04-24-2018	Anothoer unique game from 11 bit studios, however with some reserves. Anyhow worth buying and playing.	Read review
SelectButton	Kevin Mitchell	9 / 10	10-11-2019	Frostpunk is without a doubt an excellent new entry into the city-building genre. It contains enough familiar elements tinged with new, fantastical ones comprised of the steampunk aesthetic and feel. Admittedly though, the game’s seemingly shorter length may make it feel like it’s not complete, but that’s not true in any way. It’s great price point, challenging gameplay mechanics, and overall offerings with replayability make this a solid game to pick up. It takes some time to master as well, making it worth the challenge of surviving in the long winter.	Read review
Shacknews	Brittany Vincent	8 / 10	05-09-2018	The game does lose a bit of its luster after you beat the main scenario, but the two additional stories do put what you learned to the test. I’m eager to see what new situations 11 Bit Studios adds to the Frostpunk in the future, as the concept has a ton of untapped potential.	Read review
Slant Magazine	Steven Scaife	3.5 / 5 stars	04-24-2018	It pushes back hard against the sort of easy dominance over people so common to city-building games.	Read review
Softpedia	Silviu Stahie	9.5 / 10	04-23-2018	I can only hope that players won’t be discouraged by the insanely difficult learning curve because I promise you, on the other end is a beautiful game that everyone has to experience.	Read review
SomHráč.sk	Martin Bago	80 / 100	12-23-2019	Frostpunk skillfully combines survival with city building and adds unique winter setting and tense atmosphere to the mix. There’s not much replay value, though.	Read review
SpazioGames	DottorKillex	8 / 10	10-25-2019	Frostpunk is not the usual city builder, but it is a game that pushes the player to its moral limit.	Read review
TechRaptor	Don Parsons	8.5 / 10	05-01-2018	Frostpunk is a compelling experience with a smart and interesting take on the genre that might not have the emotional punch you were looking for.	Read review
The Digital Fix	Lloyd Coombes	9 / 10	03-14-2019	Frostpunk is bleak. Really bleak.	Read review
The Games Machine	Mario Baccigalupi	8.8 / 10	04-23-2018	11 bit studios changed radically its formula from This War of Mine, and engaged in a compelling, well-written steampunk odyssey set in a frozen wasteland. The connection between gameplay and dynamic storytelling is impressive, and the result is a great experience.	Read review
TheSixthAxis	Jason Coles	9 / 10	05-03-2018	Frostpunk is a truly harrowing game in the best possible way and one that will have you steeped in the harsh reality of eternal winter for dozens of hours to come.	Read review
ThisGenGaming	Justin Oneil	9 / 10	10-10-2019	If you’re like me and missed this on PC don’t remain out in the cold, come in and see why it’s so good.	Read review
Too Much Gaming	Matthew Arcilla	9 / 10	04-27-2018	What separates Frostpunk from other city builders like it is the tension between ethics and expediency, morality and morale. Your decisions will cost you either your humanity or your principles.	Read review
TrueAchievements	Heidi Nicholas	4 / 5 stars	10-10-2019	Frostpunk can be overhelming and would benefit from a longer tutorial, so it’s understandable if those new to the genre find it too tricky. But a well-conceived narrative and premise makes it worth picking up whether you’re new to the genre, or have years of city-building experience behind you.	Read review
Twinfinite	Zhiqing Wan	4.5 / 5 stars	04-23-2018	Frostpunk is an extremely polished city-builder game that builds upon the genre’s core mechanics with meaningful innovations. Despite the steep learning curve at the start, it manages to be captivating every step of the way while never forgoing that rush of adrenaline you get when the game strips away your power and complacency with yet another ethically conflicting challenge.	Read review
VGChartz	Jacob James	8 / 10	10-21-2019	Frostpunk: Console Edition is a brutal game where every choice comes at a price.	Read review
Washington Post	Christopher Byrd	Recommended	04-26-2018	When I turned away sick refugees and lost children and pulled my engineers away from medical rounds so they could labor in the mines with blue-collar workers I could only admire how skillfully the game teased out my latent ruthlessness.	Read review
Wccftech	Jorge Jimenez	8.5 / 10	04-29-2018	Frostpunk is a challenging city builder where your decisions have dramatic repercussions on the citizens you’re tasked with looking after in a wintery apocalypse. It’s a pleasant surprise that is definitely worth your time if you’re looking for something different and brutally challenging.	Read review

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Game Info

Game Description / Storyline:

Frostpunk is a brand-new title from the creators of This War of Mine. It’s a society survival game that asks what people are capable of when pushed to the brink of extinction. In an entirely frozen world, people develop steam-powered technology to oppose the overwhelming cold. The city’s ruler has to manage both the citizens and the infrastructure they live in. The leader’s tactical skills face challenges that will frequently question morality and the basic foundations of what we consider organized society. Optimization and resource management often clash with empathy and thoughtful decision-making. While city and society management will consume most of the ruler’s time, at some point exploration of the outside world is necessary to understand its history and present state.

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