Despite being seven years old, the originalFrostpunkremains an incredibly popular game. However, limitations due to its custom engine make it nearly impossible for 11 bit to continue working on.Frostpunk 2was made using Unreal Engine, and within that, 11 bit devs saw an opportunity to bring back theoriginalFrostpunkusing Unreal Engineand expand it.Frostpunk: 1886was born out of this idea.
However, it’s not simply a remaster of prior assets.Frostpunkdevs are using this as an opportunity to expand the original game with new stories, new content, new features, and more. The goal remains to put forth a faithful remake of the original game, but more stories can be told at its scale. Meanwhile,Frostpunk 2’s roadmap outlines new contentcoming over the next year and a half at least. It’s bound to be a good couple of years for fans of the franchise, and that’s exactly how 11 bit seesFrostpunk: as a franchise. Game Rant recently spoke withFrostpunk: 1886director Maciej Sułecki about plans for the remake, the work that’s been done and still needs to be done, and more.The following transcript has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Plans for Frostpunk: 1886
Q: Can you take me back to what day one of this project looked like? How did it go about getting greenlit?
A: Here at 11 bit, we’d already developed three different games with different scales but quite similarpremises starting with This War of Mine, Frostpunk 1, and Frostpunk 2. In those games, we are telling the story of a group of people who are struggling with some environmental or otherwise hard situation, but all three of them have a different scale. As developers, we have opportunities to tell different stories, but there are some limits.
This War of Mine is quite a small group, for example, so the storytelling capabilities are limited. We had a few characters, and we could tell stories about those few characters. In Frostpunk 2, we have a much larger scale. It’s not even one group but different groups and how they interact with each other and their overall dynamic. Well, the first Frostpunk has something in between.
We have a group big enough to present different opportunities for different stories. The group is big enough to tell interesting stories about children, people in love, brothers, sisters, families, and so on. While the scale is still quite close to those people, where players can see those individuals and read about them, this is something like a sweet spot in the middle ground. This realization came during Frostpunk 2’s development and was one of the factors that led to us bringing back the first Frostpunk in the form of Frostpunk: 1886. After Frostpunk 2, we were ready to go back to that scale.
New Content in Frostpunk: 1886
Q: Given that scale, how are you approaching new content in Frostpunk: 1886? Are there still stories on that scale you feel you can tell?
A:Yeah. In the first Frostpunk, we have like four different scenarios and three DLCs, two of which are quite big DLCs with their own scenarios, so we tackled a lot of stories there. For example, we tackled problems with refugees and group tension, stuff like that in the New Home scenario orThe Last Autumn. Still, we believe that there are a lot of different stories that could be told at this scale, though not necessarily as a new scenario, but the people within scenarios. We have a very good concept for stories that tackle family, for example. I think this is easily understandable by all gamers because every gamer has a family, right? Stories about siblings, parents, or something like that. I think this is a great opportunity to inflict those emotions, telling these stories.
Q: Obviously Frostpunk 2 is the newer game. Have there been any talks or considerations for Quality of Life features, things like that, in the second game coming to Frostpunk: 1886?
A: Yeah, we are currently in the process of evaluating the assets and mechanics of the first game, and we have a verysolid foundation that we built on Frostpunk 2. We have a lot of systems and a lot of mechanics that we borrow from the second game in the first one. We haven’t decided yet on all those systems because the games are different. Those systems need to fit really, really well with the first one, so there will be, for sure, improvements and quality of life improvements. But we don’t have a solid list yet.
Q: With the release set for 2027, you have two years of work ahead of you. What is that looking like right now, production/planning-wise?
A: We have a solid foundation with the first Frostpunk. The game is already designed, and the core features—maybe not core features—but the whole dynamic and iteration is already done. We simply worked on their dynamic. We don’t want to break that dynamic in this project, but we will build upon that and simply be careful not to destroy anything.
From that point of view, we are quite confident about the release year because the whole iteration process is already done.
Working with Unreal Engine
Q: With the switch to Unreal Engine and redoing all these assets, how is it that you’re approaching these to make sure they still feel like Frostpunk?
A: We are currently in progress, or already did in some parts, of that analysis of the symbols in the first Frostpunk. We simply built our bible of what it means, what the mood is of that art, and what they highlight. All improvements should be in line with those rules that we already analyzed and wrote down. For sure, we don’t want this push to change the mood of the game; we are still aiming for the same mood, the same emotions. Nothing will be too radical or different from the first game. Of course, everything will be of better quality with quality-of-life improvements, high-resolution effects, and so on. It’s really the easy part. The game is already designed, so it’s a totally different type of work than designing the game from scratch.
Q: With the switch to Unreal, what has been the biggest technical challenge when working with this engine?
A:The biggest challenge was basically making a strategy game on the engine because the Unreal Engine is mostly used forFPS gamesand other things, but we already did that with Frostpunk 2. I remember it was a little challenging at the beginning of Frostpunk 2’s development, but that work is already done so we are building on that foundation with Frostpunk 1. Yeah, so this was the biggest challenge, and I hope there aren’t any other major challenges like that ahead of us.
Frostpunk as a Franchise
Q: On stage, it was mentioned that 11 bit envisions Frostpunk, as a whole, as a franchise. From your perspective, what makes Frostpunk a franchise?
A:The setting is unique, and by setting, I mean not only the environment and story, but the approach to the whole world. There’s the approach toFrostpunk gameswhere people are struggling to survive, so that’s really interesting. We emphasize the emotions and dynamics between people and survival, so it really is this setting and storytelling approach.
Recently, I was at an event, a LARP (live-action role-playing), that was organized totally independently by some fans and some people that like to make LARPs in different settings. For me as a creator, it was super exciting.
Did they know who you were?
A:No. After the LARP, I told them what I worked on, but I really wanted to go anonymously. The experience of a LARP as a player in a game you previously designed was really super exciting. They even managed to achieve this survival feeling. If I had some food rations, I had a dilemma of eating them or giving them to someone else. The dynamic between the groups was really cool, so I believe this is something unique with this franchise: those really hard moral dilemmas during those hard times in a very unpleasant environment.
A Frostpunk LARP sounds awesome.
Yeah, it really was. I cannot wait for the next edition.
Was that here in Warsaw?
No, it was in Poland, but southern Poland in some kind of 19th-century fort.
Oh, that makes it even cooler.
Yeah, it was open air. We were basically sleeping in tents near a generator, and the generator was humming the whole time like Frostpunk. It was two and a half days, so it was really a unique experience for me.
Q: Obviously there are a lot of Frostpunk fans from the first game, but there may be some who started with the second. For those fans who haven’t played the first one, what would you say to them as they look forward to Frostpunk: 1886?
A:I think the important thing is the scale, so basically using those two titles, we are telling different stories about different groups of people in different sizes.Frostpunk 2 is about the group dynamicand the rift that is created in society, while the first one is still about surviving and this group is more or less united. This will give us a great opportunity to tell different stories about different people in a different place at different times. If you like Frostpunk 2, the first Frostpunk is still quite interesting. It, more or less, tells the same stories but with different scales.
[END]
