Frostpunk 2 review: The successor to the 2018 original, certainly is bigger, bolder and colder, writes PETER HOSKIN

Frostpunk 2 (PC, £37.99)

Verdict: bolder and colder

Judgement:

People talk about making bigger, better sequels. Frostpunk 2, the successor to the 2018 original, is certainly bigger.

While the first game was about managing a few hundred people through a few months of a new ice age, this one is about keeping thousands of people going for years.

While the first was largely set in one location, the grim Arctic city of New London, this one allows you, the world’s most battered city planner, to spread out across countless settlements.

There are also more types of sources. More factional fighting. More choices. More, more, more.

But is Frostpunk 2 better than its brilliant predecessor? Hmm. That’s hard to say.

People talk about making bigger, better sequels. Frostpunk 2, the successor to the 2018 original, is certainly bigger.

While the first game was about managing a few hundred people through a few months of a new ice age, this one is about keeping thousands of people going for years.

At times I missed some of the darker personal touches of the older Frostpunk

Mainly thanks to the larger size, this sequel is a completely different cup of frozen chai.

Sure, you’re still being asked to make brutal decisions in the name of human survival, like whether to withhold winter fuel payments from your population. But these decisions now take place more on a macro than on a micro scale. It’s about governments, economies and ideologies, not individuals.

This meant that I sometimes missed some of the darker personal touches of the older Frostpunk, like the fact that you could watch each citizen as he battled a terrible disease.

But I also found myself enjoying this new game’s ambitious, impressively realized systems. For example, playing off different political movements against each other is immensely satisfying.

Not that there’s really anything nice about this terrible ice age. Bigger? Yes. Better? Maybe. But Frostpunk 2’s choices are still as cold and unbearable as the weather. Brrrr.

I found myself enjoying the ambitious, impressively realized systems of this new game

Frostpunk 2’s choices are still as cold and unbearable as the weather. Brrrr

Ara: History Untold (PC, £49.99)

Verdict: a new civilization

Judgement:

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. You are the famous leader – an Alexander the Great or Elizabeth I, for example – of an emerging civilization. It’s up to you to defy the aging process and somehow guide that civilization through the millennia of history, from the spears and baskets of ancient times to the automated warfare of the future.

Will you defeat your rivals militarily, economically and spiritually?

Okay, I’ll stop there – because you’ve definitely heard that one before. It’s a description of the long-standing Civilization series, as well as other Civ-style games like Humankind and Old World.

And now it’s also a description of Ara: History Untold. This is Microsoft’s attempt to cement the 4X genre (so named because of its four defining goals: explore, expand, exploit, and eradicate) and it’s… just like everyone else’s attempts. Here’s another game that, if you look closely, might as well be a new Civ release.

Only it’s not quite the same. Ara does enough within its overall limitations to be at least worth a try – and perhaps even support its expansion in the coming years.

A look at the in-game gameplay of Ara: History Untold

This is Microsoft’s attempt to cement the 4X genre (so named because of its four defining goals: explore, expand, exploit, and eradicate)

Ara does enough within the overall limitations to be at least worth a try

The first notable feature is how it looks. This is a beautiful game that is a world apart from the board game-like simplicity of some of its competitors. Here you can fly from a continental view to close-ups of your settlements full of tiny people and animals in a breathtaking moment. Wow!

The next feature is its simplicity. Ara really understands what’s important in these games and for the most part brings things back to that. For example, I particularly like the ‘Prestige’ system, which lets you collect points in any area you want – from culture to industry – and then have them count towards your overall victory. That means you can win in your own way. It’s wonderfully liberating.

Of course, it may be the case that, as often happens with these games, Ara will lose some of its simplicity as it grows in the future. Let’s see. In the meantime, it’s not nearly as good as Civ, but it could be a better starting point for people looking to try out this taxing genre. They must all have civilizations.