Frostpunk 2 Q&A – Back to the Wasteland

Recently, I posted a preview and a Q&A with developers 11 bit studios about their upcoming title, The Alters. During the same trip, I also got hands-on with Frostpunk 2, specifically the start of the campaign mode, which is a direct follow-up to the original game.

I also talked about my time with the earlier beta and Utopia mode of Frostpunk 2, my hands-on with the start of the story, and my time with the original, all with Co-Game Director and Design Director Jakub Stokalski. I also have a hands-on preview from my time on Frostpunk 2, so keep tuned for that.

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 I'll start by saying I played the living hell out of the first game and quite a bit of the earlier Utopia Mode beta. Starting with that, what made you decide to create the procedurally generated utopia mode from the beta? Is it to increase the replay value?

It's one of the things we were working on immediately after Frostpunk 1 launched. We launched it in three scenarios.

The endless mode was the top-requested feature from Frostpunk 1 immediately after release. So, we ended up adding it, obviously, post-launch. But you know, the game was made in a way that it was endless only to an extent. There wasn't, let's say, some end-of-content to this, to this endless experience.

Knowing how important it is for players and for, I guess, players in the genre specifically, we decided to start with this from the get-go. This also enabled us to develop the game in a slightly different way. We focused on and expanded more on the mechanics to ensure that replayability was present. It's built-in but bolted-on.

But when we started telling the world about the game from this utopia builder angle, it didn't mean that the scenario was at any time in the backseat, right? From the beginning, the story mode was always planned, and it is the beating heart of what Frostpunk 2 is about.

Excellent. With the Utopia Builder mode in the beta, I reached one of the endings where I