It was in March that developer 11 Bit Studios announced its plans to release Frostpunk 2 in July, giving fans another crack at building a post-apocalyptic city filled with hard choices. However, with only a month left to go, the studio revealed today that a two-month delay is hitting the game, and the time is being used to improve on almost every aspect of the title.
Instead of July 25, Frostpunk 2 is now landing on September 20 across PC, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Game Pass. 11 Bit Studios says that it came to this decision following the beta it hosted recently. After players had called that gameplay slice an 8/10 experience, the studio decided to prioritize the community feedback to make the launch of the survival city builder a more complete experience.
"We believe these additional features are something you deserve to see in-game on day one, not in a patch added after the release," says Game Directors Jakub Stokalski and Łukasz Juszczyk from 11 Bit Studios. "We can only hope you understand that our decision comes from a place of wanting to create the best game possible for you."
Here are some of the gameplay changes the studio is making using the extra time:
- Changes to temperature, Heat and proximity-based gameplay, including new and rebalanced Hubs, that will make the city-building gameplay deeper and more impactful,
- More detailed and flexible workforce management,
- More direct-use abilities in the game loop, to allow you to react to crises more dynamically,
- A new resource to make city-building and expansion more strategic, helping you stabilise the city’s economy,
- Ability to reshape your districts after their construction,
- Factions’ behaviour that is better aligned with their lore,
- A more thorough and complex approach to dealing with protests.
The studio is also improving the UI elements of the city builder to make the HUD more user-friendly, adding another construction menu, and improving the readability of the Idea Tree and frostland elements. Moreover, a new Zoom Stories option is being added to let players observe specific city parts and the day-to-day life of citizens.