Frostpunk has become quite the success for developers 11 bit Studios, and so it's perhaps no surprise that the game isn't getting the cold shoulder when it comes to updates. Instead, in addition to basic patches designed to improve the technical side and presumably balance, 11 bit has raised the hopes of players by announcing the Frostpunk roadmap featuring 5 free major updates throughout 2018 - with more stuff unannounced for 2019.

First up in June is the addition of a new mode called Survivor. Designed as a challenge for those who have already mastered surviving techniques even on the hardest difficulty settings, Survivor mode will unlock new special modifiers to make the game harder in new ways.

The second update is a bit less ambitious but answers a community request by giving some basic customization for people and automatons. This will let you name citizens and automatons, they are also planning future customizations beyond that - perhaps 2019 will have an advanced customization options update. Still, if you want to tell the story where you and your friends are there and named characters, this will let you do that.

After that is a new scenario called The Builders. Just like the three scenarios that shipped with Frostpunk, this will have its own story and challenge and while they aren't spoiling anything they do think it will excite folk. The 2 secondary campaigns in Frostpunk already each took the game in different directions, forcing players to attempt new things or address different ideas so it will be interesting to see what they do with their biggest update of the year.

Their fourth update will be another fan-requested addition of an endless mode. 11 bit is doing their own take on the idea and is calling it Endurance Mode, presumably meaning that even in the endless/sandbox type take here you don't get to get out of dealing with all the cold and societal issues.

Finally, Winter Snapshots will follow a trend we've seen more of in this generation of games by adding a new photo mode to Frostpunk, which will make it easier to get really nice pictures of the beautiful game. Getting to not show the UI there would be nice as it often unnecessarily busy up any pretty pictures that were taken (and with my roughly 85 screenshots from Frostpunk taken cause they looked pretty and for our review, I will be happily snapping along with this!) They also promise that there'll be a special surprise for the update but sadly refuse to spoil it.

And that's Frostpunk roadmap for 2018 by 11 bit, all free updates and these are in addition to any smaller patches that come up. If you're wanting to find out some about how Frostpunk came to be, I (not so) humbly suggest our feature on the creation of Frostpunk or read up on how 11 bit approaches storytelling in games by combining it with gameplay over here.

If you want to pick up Frostpunk it is currently available for $30 on Humble Bundle, GOG, and other retailers. If you buy through one of those links you also help support TechRaptor!

What do you think of 11 bit's planned Frostpunk roadmap? Do any of these updates make you more likely to pick up the game