Finished Frostpunk last night, never thought a "city builder" game could have such an intense finale
I never played This War Of Mine but I have seen the overwhelmingly positive reviews it got and is regarded as a masterpiece by many. Expectations for Frostpunk were naturally high because of that and imo the devs delivered.
I liked the smaller city scale compared to Tropico and Cities Skylines like games for example were you can expand almost indefinitely. The realistic lack of easily obtainable resources and most importantly the small number of survivors is very limiting at times and personally I like such constraining factors in city building where you have to optimize on resources and personnel.
The laws add interesting moral choices and people have to find a balance between pragmatism and idealism to maintain their city. Short term or long term solutions? The game tips warn about unforeseeable consequences tied to every law you sign that might come to haunt you one day.
Some people seem a bit disgruntled about the shortness of the main story and the fact that there seems to be no sandbox (snowbox Kappa) mode at the moment at least. This is not a normal city builder and the story and atmosphere take priority and I think its a good thing. I think sandbox mode would remove some of the anxiety and stress factors tied to the main story that make it so exciting especially on the first time around.
As for the main story's finale I was optimistic since by my own standards I had done "right" moral choices and had done a ton of exploring and whatnot. If people are familiar with Mass Effects 2's finale and how you can prepare for the Suicide Mission I was expecting something similar. When I started the Suicide Mission well prepared in Mass Effect 2 I had confidence that everything would be alright, even on the first playthrough. I did not have this feeling with Frostpunk. Instead I felt like punched in the gut and a genuine sense of powerlessness and despair when I started to see many might not survive the final (real life) hours after all the work I had put into keeping everyone as safe as possible.
Nonetheless the awesome soundtrack and a chilling wind coming out of speakers at full blast as the world darkened was an extremely memorable experience. Definitely going to replay the main story again with different choices in the future! 9/10
(PS. Remember to sometimes stop / put the game on slowest speed to appreciate the cool animations, lighting and awesome steampunk contraptions, you might miss a lot of the atmosphere of the game if you don't zoom into the icy streets of New London from time to time
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Finland
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Relic Entertainment
