Frostpunk: Beyond the Ice, the mobile game based on the popular city-building survival game Frostpunk, is launching for free this Tuesday, October 29 on Google Play and Apple App Store. In anticipation of the release, Com2uS has revealed some exciting details surrounding the mobile-exclusive gameplay features, plus comments from the actual developer team.
Players will manage a steam-powered city stuck in a sudden ice age, gather other survivors and face ethical dilemmas as they try to guide the city to survival and prosperity. Similar to the original Frostpunk, themes of efficiency versus morality will appear in the mobile version as players must constantly decide whether to distribute the limited resources in the city to win the people’s support or use them for the city’s development. Each of these decisions can affect how the game unfolds, and may even lead players to becoming respected leaders or feared dictators.
Additionally, players can participate in various minigames, including the Stock Market that recreates an early 18th-century stock trading system; the Animal Shelter that saves endangered animals; the Pub with different board games; and the Hospital that treats sick patients.
Frostpunk: Beyond the Ice offers mobile-exclusive features, such as multiplayer social elements. The main social feature is the industry system in which players choose one of five Featured Industries — Engineering, Agriculture, Technology, Healthcare, and Finance — early in the game and develop the city with industry-related resources and skills. Each industry offers essential products for development, and special items from other industries can be obtained through trading with other players.
“The message we want to convey is that everyone has their own role in the end and can only survive through cooperation,” the development team said. “We designed the game so that players have to interact with other players to develop the city in all directions.”
In particular, the development team described the hidden theme of the game as “highlighting how survivors cooperate and rely on each other to stay alive in the apocalypse.” According to the developers, the most important element they considered when producing Frostpunk: Beyond the Ice was to provide the same experience as the original, beloved strategy game in a mobile environment with high quality. They simplified the UI to suit the mobile interface and increase the stability and efficiency of the game so that players can enjoy the excellent visuals on various devices.
