Frostpunk

Frostpunk is a society-survival game from 11 bit studios — the developer behind This War of Mine — built around a single hard premise: the world has frozen over, and you're in charge of what may be the last city on Earth. Heat is the central resource. Around a generator the size of a building, your people huddle, work, eat, fall sick, lose hope and demand things, and you decide what gets built and what gets denied to keep them functional through the next storm.

The game's strongest layer is its law system. You pass laws that regulate how your society operates — working hours, healthcare, food provision, treatment of children, religious or military expression — and each law shifts how the city behaves in the long run. Reach a turning point and you choose between extremes: rule with an iron fist, or lean on faith and compassion. There is no neutral choice and no undo, and the path you commit to changes what your city looks like by the end.

Around the laws, more familiar systems run: resource optimization, technology research toward steam-powered automatons and airships, building placement to maximize warmth and worker access, and management of citizen hope and discontent. Expeditions into the Frostland outside your walls return with supplies, intel and survivors whose fate you decide. The endless tension between the spreadsheet and the ethical decision is what the game is actually about.

Free updates since launch added an Endless Mode (eight maps with three modes — Endurance, Builders and Serenity), the Fall of Winterhome scenario, naming for characters and automatons, and a photo mode. Three paid expansions sit behind the season pass. A reimagined version, Frostpunk 1886 in Unreal Engine, is in development for 2027 — but the original game remains the one most players have lived through, scars and all.