Frostpunk is special, it’s one of a kind in that the game is used as a vehicle to convey a message in a way that most games can’t even aspire to achieve. You’ll switch of your PC after a session and walk off filled with what if’s and that is an amazing experience. Few developers understand how to play the heart strings well, but 11 bit studios are proving themselves to be the orchestra conductor.

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.

Frostpunk is an incredible survival city builder that is successful in both delivering an optimal gameplay and empowering it with a believable (and scary) atmosphere coupled with an immersive storyline. An outstanding feat that reaches the same heights of This War of Mine, the studio’s former product.

Frostpunk is bleak. Really bleak. Each decision serves not to ensure progress, but to ensure survival against overwhelming odds. It’s essentially a Crisis Management Simulator, and I love it for that. Just remember to play something more cheerful immediately afterwards.

Going in with as little knowledge of the mechanics and choices and scenario structure is the best way to experience Frostpunk. One of the most intense, beautiful, and emotionally resonant games that features arranging housing and streets ever made.

Frostpunk is among the best overall takes on the survival city builder to date. Its theming and consistency create a powerful narrative through line that binds your actions around the struggle to hold onto humanity in uncertain times. Hope is a qualified good, but you may not always be strong enough (or clever enough) to shelter that flame from the cold.

I suppose that Frostpunk's main flaw is also its central conceit, because not everyone will be attracted to experiencing its icy apocalyptic wasteland or the uncomfortable ethical and moral decisions that the game forces at nearly every moment. Nobility, zealotry, authoritarianism and egalitarianism are hardly the stuff of sunny escapist fantasies. Kudos to 11 Bit Studios for crafting a game that is as addictive as it is dire, dour, and determined to make us regret our choices, no matter how well-intended.

Even though the bleakness is palpable, Frostpunk is a captivating experience. The gameplay is unique and varied, using the best aspects of city-building and survival games, with a little exploration mixed in.

Frostpunk is a depressing, beautiful and deeply engaging survival city-builder that forces the player to make difficult choices. The dystopian reality is wonderfully made, and you'll feel cold just staring at the in-game thermometer.

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.

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.

Frostpunk is definitely one of the most engaging strategy games around, and one that deserves to be experienced.

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.

Frostpunk is a rare blend of social simulation, city management, and survival game that just about does everything right. There are times I wish it was a bit easier to come back from a misstep, but that’s the point of the game – you need to make choices, live with the consequences, and try again if you fail. I just feel bad that each time I do fail, the people who depended on me are let down, and likely dead. It’s that kind of emotion, a sense of real responsibility to these digital characters, that makes me think Frostpunk may be the best city management game I’ve ever played and one I’ll be playing for countless hours.

Frostpunk is a stressful, stylish, and addictive survival management game filled with incredibly difficult choices.

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.

Rarely does an interactive experience keep me awake at night wrestling with big decisions. Frostpunk did this on multiple occasions and made me feel squeamish when forcing edicts upon society instead of building consensus. Extraordinary circumstances call for desperate measures, and all I can do is ask for forgiveness from those trampled by my headstrong approach.

Frostpunk builds upon the foundation that made This War of Mine a sleeper hit in 2014, providing a solid and innovative gameplay experience with real time strategy and survival elements. Winter is coming.

Rarely has extinction been more fun. Frostpunk shows that successful build-up-strategy and a captivating story need not be a contradiction.

Frostpunk is addictive, accessible but hard to master, and deeper than you expect, not only when it comes you gameplay, but what it actually manages to make you feel.

Frostpunk is a city-builder full of hard work and tough moments, but it’s also a tale about hope. A videogame about people living in the hardest imaginable conditions, and our travel to make their existences a sustainable project.

City planning meets the survival of the human race in an Arctic wilderness, and it's snow joke. [June 2018, p.80]

Frostpunk can get to your heart and let it frozen just with a few simple decisions and that's amazing.

The atmosphere alongside with tough moral choices and many other merits makes Frostpunk absurdly engaging. [06/2018, p.58]

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.

It's an emotional roller coaster that will likely leave you more defeated after "winning" than when you first started, and that is incredible.

Frostpunk shakes up the often cheery or stale genre of City Building games with a dystopian background, survival elements, and involved decision making. With the right fixes of the game’s technical faults and (much) more content, Frostpunk could be a new staple for city builders looking for something different.

Frostpunk is a brutal city-builder that shines thanks to difficult choices, an original world and engaging gameplay.

It is not as devastating and dark as This War of Mine. But nonetheless this interesting strategy with its survival aspects plays with moral dilemmas and asks some uncomfortable questions.

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.

Frostpunk is a very unique and atmospheric survival experience that manages to make us reflect on aspects of our very selves and the society we live in, even though this is not quite achieved with the variety we would expect from a City-Builder game or the deep personal connection that This War of Mine managed to forge.

Atmospheric city-building game meets brutal fight for survival.

Scripted events will get annoying, but the very foundation chills to the bones. Extraordinary building strategy, with which you will literally freeze. [Issue#286]

Frostpunk is one of the best city-builders out there with rich gameplay mechanics and awesome graphics. We would have loved a sandbox mode, but that's about the only drawback we can find in this awesome game.

Frostpunk is a unique strategy game that offers both an engaging and addicting element. Hours will go by as you are consumed into the doom-and-gloom of your city while trying to make sure people don’t die. The game is fairly linear in its premise, but offers unique situations that haven’t been seen in other city-building titles.

Frostpunk is not the usual city builder, but it is a game that pushes the player to its moral limit.

Thanks to its accurate management mechanics, its visuals and what it has to say, Frostpunk is a great game, which only suffers from a systematic need to take the decision that works, regardless of the moral aspect of the game.

Frostpunk's atmosphere, tight structure and sense of purpose make it stand out in a genre often given over to abstraction. [July 2018, p.106]

Frostpunk isn't perfect, but it doesn't really matter, as this is playing a different kind of ball game that has a unique charm of its own. It engrosses players into its frozen, post-apocalyptic world, and lets them do more than just design a city; it lets them really fear about failing, and it lets them feel immense joy for every small victory. It's a survival strategy game at its best.

A really beautiful game both to see and to play. A little gem out there that we can only recommend to everyone.

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.

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 game lovers.

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.

At its cold, frostbitten heart, Frostpunk is a game of decisions, and what makes it so satisfying is they all matter. [Issue#200, p.75]

It may seem like there is no end in sight, no happy ending for those who survive, but with its fantastic presentation and no-nonsense attitude, Frostpunk is an exemplary game to learn from and with so many paths to go down, the replay value is through the roof, especially for gamers who happen to be a glutton for punishment.

Overall, I liked Frostpunk, but it felt like half of the campaign was missing. Just when I got to the point where I understood the rules and how to play the game, it was over. Still, Frostpunk is challenging and interesting, and it has a unique setting that brings in some new gameplay mechanics, so it’s worthwhile to try out.

The first thing you need to understand, when approaching Frostpunk, is that it is not an ordinary city builder, but a survival experience that uses management mechanics as a means to support, on a playful level, the elements of social engineering and nihilism that define it.

Frostpunk is a great "society survival" game that provides the feeling of imminent annihilation quite well, stepping on well-thought mechanics and excellent steampunk aesthetics. Our gameplay initiatives have a “grey tint” and place us in front morally significant decisions, while struggling to counter the hostile environment.

Though repetitive with stacks of downtime, Frostpunk has a strangely addictive gameplay loop (more so, I imagine, if you emotionally connect with your people).

Nice-looking and highly original, Frostpunk is too simplistic for a city-building sim and too shallow to grip you with emotional hooks.