Frostpunk 2 Review- A reimagining I didn't quite desire

I was understandably extremely excited when the release date for the sequel of one of my favorite city building games was closing in. Frostpunk was a breath of fresh air back in 2018 when it released. It was tense, thrilling and did not hold your hand... your mistakes were yours to make, and you had to live with the consequences.

This game is not at all bad by any means, but to me, it feels like calling it Frostpunk "2" is slightly unfair. Yes, it is the second game in the Frostpunk universe, but it is in no way a continuation of Frostpunk. It's a side-move kind of situation, taking a step towards a more Civilization-like aesthetic and gameplay style.

Story

This time around, the emphasis is no longer on mere survival, but on expansion. I felt like the thick tension present in its predecessor was no longer a factor here. No more do you have to fight against the elements and sacrificing people left, right, and center in the name of survival, the name of the game in the sequel is expansion. You must enlarge your footprint on the frost-covered landscape and build up a formidable civilization, while making sure to not upset any of the four factions residing inside your town.

This game is a lot more political than the other one, and generally feels like a tug-of-war between the different mindsets of the factions present. This is also pretty interesting and quite well-realized, but personally not what has drawn me to Frostpunk in the first place.

Gameplay

This section may seem a little rough, but please keep in mind that these words come from someone who is not a fan of the resource-management-style of city builders. Games like Factorio or The Dyson Sphere Program do not present any interest to me.
In my hours playing this game, I felt on a constant runaround for resource gathering. There are a total of 15 resources to keep track of in this game, each with their own importance and varying significance. The task of keeping them all above-the-board feels tedious and boring to me. I could maybe be asked to keep 5-7 of them consistently under control but the sizeable number of varied resources, each with their own quirks and gather rates makes it impossibly upsetting to keep track of just for keeping your civilization from collapse.

This intense resource management comes on top of various political, research and expansion based objectives you're presented with along the way. Each of the factions has their own demands of you as a leader and this starts feeling like an hours-long ping pong match for the one in charge of it all: Pilgrims ask for whatever support for their faction, but this upsets the Stalwarts. Now you need to do something for the Stalwarts in order to not have them sabotage your efforts... but here come the New Londoners. Anyway...

It feels to me like another huge element that was lost along the way was the intimacy of the crater-side town. In the previous incarnation you could see each individual citizen slowly trudging along the chest-high snow, making a path towards their objective. This gave all of it a sense of harsh realism that grounded the whole experience.

Unfortunately, that's all gone now, because it was probably no longer realistic to keep that level of granularity present on a much bigger-scope game, but I cannot help feeling saddened that it was required. Things now feel much more like a tabletop board game.

Graphics and conclusion

This is overall a very pretty and lovingly made game in my opinion, and I think the screenshots I've included could go a little bit towards proving this.

I feel that in no way is this a bad game, it's actually quite good for what it is, but it's just not what I feel the community (or I) wanted. I command them for their bravery and do not regret my purchase in the name of supporting their endeavors, but overall this is just not what I hoped for.