As far as city builders go, Frostpunk is somewhat in a league of its own. Most city builders focus entirely on the building aspect and care little about things like story or purpose. Back in the days of the Sim titles – like SimTower and SimCity – the game was entirely about just building. There were rudimentary features for appeasing tenants or citizens, but the core of the games was always getting more money to build more. There was no end goal, and with most city builders, this has stayed relatively true. But Frostpunk is different.

Evidenced immediately in the trailers, Frostpunk is a survival game, one that happens to be dressed as a city builder. The core of the game is about struggling to bring humanity back from the edge of the abyss, and how the player chooses to treat the citizens, to exploit or utilize them, is entirely their choice. As some players stated in their Steam Reviews, the game doesn’t really care if you want to kill a bunch of orphans so they don’t get in the way – it leaves how you feel about your actions up to you.

What the game focuses on instead is the dynamics of keeping a struggling city alive in a frozen wasteland. Heat is a primary concern, and failing to tend to it properly means disaster. Likewise, hope is something in short supply, and it is up to the player to keep their citizens from giving up. How the player chooses to survive is up to them, and the city will evolve accordingly. It can become a tyrannical, steampunk nightmare, or a bastion of hope in a wasteland. It helps that the graphics and aesthetics of Frostpunk fit perfectly with its purpose, and the game does an admirable job of reflecting the harsh realities of the world in what the player sees and interacts with.