Frostpunk 2 offers us a look straight down the barrel of our own potential dystopian future on a barren, largely lifeless alternative history earth some 30 years after the dawn of a new ice age. Any tips you pick up here could come in handy in real life too, so if you ever find me wandering around in the snow, and this page saved your life, please do invite me in for a hearty rat stew. It will be much appreciated.
Surviving the Prologue in Frostpunk 2
If you are a seasoned Frostpunk player, not much of this will be new to you, but if this first time you have stepped out into the icy wastes you could find yourself tripping up on the story’s very first section – the Prologue.
The first thing you are told to do is to Frostbreak to an Oil Wagon, but what does that mean and how do you do it?
What is Frostbreaking?
In Frostpunk 2 the ground is so hard from the permafrost layer that it is impossible to farm or build on, so this frost must be broken up, You have several large machines to do this and you put them into action by selecting the Frostbreak icon in the bottom left of your screen. Then you see white tiles on the map and these are what you can smash up. Each Frostbreaking job can work on eight tiles at a time so you need to plot a route to resources so that you can build an Extraction District and mine the resource.
Clear a direct route here to the Oil Wagon just to the south of the Dreadnaught.
Building housing
You will need to build housing for the 3,000 survivors you begin with so you may as well get that done while you are Frostbreaking. It makes sense to build the housing next to the Dreadnaught, because when you eventually get your oil that will become your furnace and provide heat for your population. Housing gets a heat bonus if you build it next to the generator, or next to housing that is next to the generator. You will need to build two housing districts to complete the Prologue.
Gathering materials
To build anything in Frostpunk 2 you need prefabs and these can be obtained initially by locating material wagons, frostbreaking to them, and building. To the left of the oil wagon and down a little you will find a Wagon full of prefabs. Clear a path there and get to work on getting the goods.
Food in Frostpunk 2
Food is vital. You have around 90 weeks from the start of the Prologue until when the next Whiteout arrives. You need to gather 40,000 units of food before this time elapses to survive the harshness. This can be done but it needs a little work. If you look around in District mode you should see several food resources that you can frostbreak your way towards. The more you can get to the quicker your food stockpiles will go up and your people won’t fret as much and start to threaten to leave to save others.
Once you have cleared the way to a food resource get a Food District on it as quickly as you can. You will be told at the correct point in the Prologue how many weeks it will take to get to the necessary 40k number, and, importantly, how many you have left before the whiteout. You will soon realize that without a little extra effort, starvation is on the cards.
While your district is constructing try and frostbreak towards the next food spot and get building on that too. Keep an eye on the number of prefabs you have left as you may run out if you keep building. If you see a wagon, get to it and harvest the resources it holds to help out. If all else fails you can destroy a district to claim its prefabs back but this takes time, and obviously you lose that resource.
Once you have food districts up and running you can click on them and get the workers to do double shifts. They won’t be happy and it will increase your disease rating a little, but it’s the only way you will make the number.
If you want to make it comfortably, build around three food districts and also get your people to Tighten Belts (click on your character in the bottom middle of the screen). Again they won’t like cutting down on rations, but better they save food for when none will be available.
The only other thing to note is that you will also run out of storage for the food before you get to what you need. You need to build some storage hubs (click the buildings tab) and place one of two alongside a food district. You can get by with one, but two is probably safer.
Use Pause regularly
A tap of the spacebar will stop the game’s time moving forward so you can actually do a lot of planning work without letting the whiteout creep ever closer. Time is against you so use all the tools to your advantage. Just don’t forget to unpause and sit there for five minutes, not paying attention while nothing happens.
Alongside Pause, you can also speed up time if you find you have plenty to spare.