Frostpunk: Beyond The Ice Now Available In Early Access
Frostpunk: Beyond The Ice, the latest instalment in 11 Bit Studios dystopian, apocalyptic city builder series, is now available in early access. Because the game is in early access, it isn’t the finished article just yet, and players’ experiences will hopefully be used to improve the title for its official launch later in the year.
The Frostpunk Franchise
The original Frostpunk title launched on Xbox, PlayStation, and PC in 2018. Published by the studio behind This War of Mine, it is a dystopian city builder set in a frozen world. The player is tasked with keeping citizens warm and as content as possible while producing enough resources to stave off freezing conditions. As well as the usual city-building tropes, it has players enact laws and make decisions like whether to put children to work and what to do with amputee workers.
A sequel is planned with Frostpunk 2 launching directly onto Game Pass on day one and is expected in the first half of this year. Players that don’t want to wait can download and install Frostpunk: Beyond The Ice now. It is available as early access on iOS and Android, for free, for players in the US, UK, and Philippines. The final version will launch later in the year.
Frostpunk: Beyond The Ice
Beyond the Ice has the same sense of urgency that the original game invoked, and the storytelling is good. It also keeps what worked well in the original, while adding a few extras. You can trade with other players while new buildings include the Animal Shelter and the Weather Station. There are also new mechanics added. Tutorials are lacking, especially for activities like combat, but that’s to be expected with an Early Access title. Similarly, minor bugs and some issues with smooth movement have also been reported. But that is likely to improve over time.
The game has been produced by Com2uS in conjunction with NetEase and, of course 11 Bit Studios. The latter are the team behind the original game and also brought us This War of Mine, which is another game similar to Frostpunk. They are working on the sequel to the original game, with Frostpunk 2 potentially launching sometime in the next few months and going straight to Game Pass on PC and Xbox.
