Frostpunk 2 has been delayed to a new release date on 20th September, developer 11 bit studios has announced, as they look to address feedback from the Frostpunk 2 Beta held a couple months ago.
Previously planned for launch on 25th July, 11 bit is taking an extra two months to try and refine the game in key areas identified by players of the beta – they say the game had an 8/10 from the post-beta survey, which is pretty solid for a work in progress game. There will be changes to game mechanics to help things proceed more smoothly, and improvements to the UI and UX so that it’s the core decision making that gives you pause, not figuring out where that management feature is. And in response to players no longer feeling a connection to the actual citizens of their frozen city, there’s new Zoom Stories to cut back down to the personal level while retaining the broader scope of this diesel-powered sequel.
Here’s the breakdown:
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- Changes to temperature, Heat and proximity-based gameplay, including new and rebalanced Hubs, that will make the city-building gameplay deeper and more impactful,
- More detailed and flexible workforce management,
- More direct-use abilities in the game loop, to allow you to react to crises more dynamically,
- A new resource to make city-building and expansion more strategic, helping you stabilise the city’s economy,
- Ability to reshape your districts after their construction,
- Factions’ behaviour that is better aligned with their lore,
- A more thorough and complex approach to dealing with protests.
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- Improving the HUD (Head-Up Display) to make it clearer and more intuitive,
- Adding a new construction menu along with five new city Hubs,
- Improving the clarity, readability and look & feel of the Idea Tree and frostland.
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- Zoom in on specific city parts to watch the day-to-day life of citizens
Some of the above features have already been previewed and tested by a select few players, while 11 bit state that these are not the full extent of what they’re working on over the next few months.
Looking back at that original game, Jason wrote in our Frostpunk review, “Frostpunk is a horrifyingly playable post-apocalyptic survival game that demands more out of you than most games ever could. Each decision and each sacrifice you make is hard on your city and on you. There are so many impossible choices and no win situations that the game is almost hard to play, but it’s so compelling that you will be unable to step away from it. The only real negative is the sheer overwhelming nature of the world the game is set in, and really that is more of a compliment to the designers than anything else.”
Source: Steam
