City-building survival sim Frostpunk's free Fall of Winterhome expansion is out next week
Adds a new story-driven scenario and map.
Frostpunk, 11 Bit Studios' superb snowbound city management and survival sim, is getting its next major free expansion next week, on September 19th.
Frostpunk, if you've not yet had the pleasure, offers a fascinatingly distinct, and frequently gruelling, take on city building games. It tempers the genre's usual growth excesses by massively limiting resources (as is befitting in its sub-zero, post-apocalyptic world) and by forcing players to make tough moral decisions - perhaps you'd like to put the children to work, or kill the sick? - in order to keep their fledgling civilisation from an early demise. Eurogamer's Robert Purchese awarded Frostpunk a Recommended badge, calling it a "spellbinding [...] breathless battle against the odds". It's good!
11 Bit Studios' latest free expansion, known as The Fall of Winterhome, adds a new story-driven scenario to Frostpunk, which unfolds across a brand-new map. It will apparently introduce "hours of brand-new content" alongside a "fresh take" on the game's core mechanics, and even offers up more history on the frozen wasteland that you're forced to call home. You can see approximately seven seconds of mostly obscured footage in the teaser trailer below.
Although 11 Bit Studios doesn't explicitly say so, it seems likely (although obviously I could be wrong) that the expansion will put players directly in charge of the ill-fated Winterhome settlement that, under the right circumstances, can be encountered in the main game.
The Fall of Winterhome is the latest free update to arrive as part of 11 Bit Studios' extensive post-launch roadmap for Frostpunk. So far, that's seen the delivery of new difficulty options for those of a particularly masochistic disposition, alongside improved visuals, and a range of new customisation options. Following The Fall of Winterhome's release, there's still a sandbox-like Endurance mode and photo/screenshot tools planned for 2018. More is coming next year too.