Frostpunk
Set in an alternate late 19th century, Frostpunk presents a grim world where every decision comes with a cost, challenging players to weigh the survival of their society against their own morality. In this city-building survival game, players navigate a completely frozen world where society must adapt to steam-powered technology to combat the overwhelming cold. As the city's ruler, known as "the Captain," players must establish laws, maintain hope among their citizens, and explore the frozen wasteland for survivors and resources. With moral dilemmas, political turmoil, and fluctuating weather conditions, players must balance optimization and resource management with empathy and thoughtful decision-making. Narrative themes include loss, morality, and political upheaval.
- Release date: 04-28-2018
- Developer: 11 bit studios
- Publisher: 11 bit studios
- Platforms: MacOS, PlayStation 4, Windows PC, Xbox One
Triggers for this game
Animals & Wildlife
Birds
Owls in the DLC Last Autumn (avoidable by not playing the DLC)
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In the DLC, your superstitious workers see an owl and start to slow down work because they think it is a bad Omen.
- Is avoidable
- Can't be avoided
Misc. Animals & Critters
Polar bears
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In one encounter in Endless mode, your scouts may happen upon a sled train that was wiped out by polar bears.
- Is avoidable
Crime
Assassination
Depending on choices
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The branches of the Book of Law on the Purpose tree give you several options for keeping your people manageable. However, the final options on each branch involve executing dissidents
- Can't be avoided
Attacks on Law Enforcement
Depending on choices
- Is avoidable
Being Held Against Will
Depending on choices
- Is avoidable
Explosions & Bombs
ShowHide potential spoilers or triggers
The Last Autumn DLC -- Effie MacLachlan, an assistant engineer, is a member of the only group of survivors after the Core of the Site 107 Generator exploded, killing all the other IEC employees at the site.
- Can't be avoided
Fights
One way to satisfy the population is to construct fighting arenas for entertainment.
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A Fighting Arena can be built, which is shown in the Book of Laws as two large fighters brawling inside the cage. Alternatively, Duel to the Death can be allowed between discontent workers in the arena to further entertain the crowds at the cost of people.
- Is avoidable
Gangs & Mobsters
Mobs (depending on choices)
- Is avoidable
- Can't be avoided
Hangings
ShowHide potential spoilers or triggers
In The Refugees, one of the Frostlands locations you can explore is a man hanging from a tree. If you go there, you find out that he was one of the engineers who worked on the generator and did this after learning that the people who hired him used lies and false hope to get him to work. In Endless Mode, one of the Frostlands locations you can explore is a man hanging from a tree with his dead family at the base of it. Your scouting party refuses to even speculate on how they might have died.
- Is avoidable
Murder
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Multiple examples in The Last Autumn DLC
- Can't be avoided
Torture
Depending on choices
- Is avoidable
Death & Loss
Abandonment
Depending on choices
- Is avoidable
Death of Child
Odds increase depending on choices
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Children can die just like adults due to starvation, illness, or certain events.
- Can't be avoided
Death of Friend
Depending on choices
- Is avoidable
Death of Loved One
Depending on choices
- Is avoidable
Death of Parent
Depending on choices
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If all the adults die and only children remain, the children will proceed to execute you for dooming their parents.
- Is avoidable
Death of Sibling
Depending on choices
- Is avoidable
Death of Spouse or Partner
Depending on choices
- Is avoidable
Missing Person(s)
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There is a lost group of your people that you have to work to find & rescue. if you don't go soon enough, a straggler from there collapses outside your shelter, telling you of its demise and leading to political upheaval.
- Can't be avoided
Single Parenting
Depending on choices
- Is avoidable
Suicide
Depending on choices
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You can choose to amputate a patient that begs you not to, rather than let him die from an infection. If you don't have a care house to take care of him, he kills himself because he doesn't want to be a burden to the limited resources. It is only spoken of second hand, but a random event has a sex worker complete suicide if you have enacted the House of Pleasure law. In the Order path, a poet kills himself after a smear campaign your propaganda ministry started because of his "dangerous" writings on hopelessness. In The Refugees, one of the Frostlands locations you can explore is a man hanging from a tree. If you go there, you find out that he was one of the engineers who worked on the generator and did this after learning that the people who hired him used lies and false hope to get him to work. Also in The Refugees, this is implied to be the fate of Lord Craven if you save him from the lynch mob. He leaves your city and walks out into the icy cold by himself, with no other shelter or source of warmth around for miles. None of your resources go missing, so he goes without any food or coal. In The Fall of Winterhome, one possible event in the "Final Hours" arc involves finding an elderly couple's dead bodies in bed, having taken poison together. A note beside them explains they know they're going to die either when the Generator blows or in the aftermath, so they're choosing to be Together in Death. In Endless Mode, one of the Frostlands locations you can explore is a man hanging from a tree with his dead family at the base of it. Your scouting party refuses to even speculate on how they might have died.
- Is avoidable
Disturbing Sounds & Sound Design
- Can't be avoided
Drugs & Alcohol
Alcohol Consumption
Can build pubs
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Substance abuse and drinking are referred to in text only once you're able to build a pub, but nothing's shown.
- Is avoidable
Alcoholism
Depending on choices
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Substance abuse and drinking are referred to in text only once you're able to build a pub, but nothing's shown.
- Is avoidable
Misc. Drugs & Alcohol Content
Depending on choices
ShowHide potential spoilers or triggers
Substance abuse and drinking are referred to in text only once you're able to build a pub, but nothing's shown.
- Is avoidable
Financial & Resource Management
Homelessness
Unavoidable in the beginning of the game
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Citizens with grave illness (typically mild frostbite) can only be cured through radical invasive treatment unless advanced medical facilities are available, and will sometimes become "useless" amputees as a result of the surgery. They are labeled "useless" as they are unable to work, but still have to be taken care of. They will become resentful about this, including stating they'd rather be homeless. However, with the right laws and tech, prosthetics can be fitted on them which returns them to the workforce.
- Can't be avoided
- Can't be avoided
Poverty
Pieces of the game involve trying to stretch food out as long as possible
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Sawdust can be used to create extra rations, but at the price of hope and health. This is avoidable.
- Is avoidable
- Can't be avoided
Scarcity
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Managing & gathering resources is a critical aspect of the game. Food in the form of rations, made from raw food, is required for your colonists to survive. If you don't have enough Cookhouses to convert raw food into either Rations or Soup/Sawdust Meals in time to feed starving people they will eat the raw food when they're desperate enough, but Cookhouses are so efficient that it's almost impossible for your production of raw food to outstrip the rate of conversion to cooked food. Coal is consumed as fuel by heat-generating structures. It can be generated infinitely inside a city with a coal thumper or coal mine. Wood plays a role in early structures and is always needed in research. It can also be transformed into coal in a charcoal kiln. Metal is used for advanced structures and technology. Steam cores are external resources that can only be found through scouting, and are needed for Automatons and advanced structures. The amount of workers is limited and can only be increased by immigrants from other parts of the map. It's divided into skilled Engineers, who perform specialized tasks such as research, staffing medical buildings, or advanced resource gathering; Workers, run-of-the-mill laborers, and Children, who can be put to work depending on the laws you choose.
- Can't be avoided
Gore
Amputation
ShowHide potential spoilers or triggers
Citizens with grave illness (typically mild frostbite) can only be cured through radical invasive treatment unless advanced medical facilities are available, and will sometimes become "useless" amputees as a result of the surgery. They are labeled "useless" as they are unable to work, but still have to be taken care of. They will become resentful about this, including stating they'd rather be homeless. However, with the right laws and tech, prosthetics can be fitted on them which returns them to the workforce.
- Can't be avoided
Blood
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Various still images depict blood, including showing bound prisoners being beaten, patients and corpses covered by bloodstained sheets, etc.
- Can't be avoided
Cannibalism
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If the situation becomes dire, the city can resort to cannibalism by passing the "Alternative Food Source" law. The last survivors of Winterhome resorted to eating their own dead after the Generator exploded. All it managed to do was extend their lives a few more days before exposure and hunger killed them all. The final entry of the Winterhome survivors simply reads "God forgive us, we're eating our own dead. There's no hope."
- Is avoidable
Dismemberment
ShowHide potential spoilers or triggers
Citizens with grave illness (typically mild frostbite) can only be cured through radical invasive treatment unless advanced medical facilities are available, and will sometimes become "useless" amputees as a result of the surgery. They are labeled "useless" as they are unable to work, but still have to be taken care of. They will become resentful about this, including stating they'd rather be homeless. However, with the right laws and tech, prosthetics can be fitted on them which returns them to the workforce.
- Can't be avoided
Hate & Discrimination
Ableism
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Multiple decisions you have to make will involve either blatant ableism on your part or feedback from citizens that contains ableism. For example, you will have to decide to build settings to treat disease, homes for rehabilitation after injury, etc. When investigating Nikola Tesla's city, you learn that he left disabled members of his expedition to die on the way to it and later on killed those who became sick by exiling them. When you face the refugee crisis in A New Home, you can choose to invoke this trope by only accepting the healthy refugees.
- Can't be avoided
Classism
Especially noteworthy in the scenario "The Refugees"
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The poor citizens were going to be left for dead in London by the wealthy folks. Instead, the poor folks took over the Lords' ship and went to the generators themselves. The scenario involves dealing with the tension that builds when the Lords eventually show up to the city. Lords continue to remain arrogant and entitled, demanding to be served first as nobility even in a city where the poor have made 'equality' the watchword.
- Can't be avoided
- Can't be avoided
- Can't be avoided
Misc. Hate & Discrimination
Non-chattel slavery
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If all the able-bodied adults die and there are only amputees left, you are Made a Slave to work for them until you and they inevitably die. If you fail to completely ease the tensions between the Refugees and the Lords, but not bad enough for a massacre to happen, the Refugees enslave the Lords. In The Last Autumn, there is an option to build a penal colony, which adds convicts to the workforce as forced labor, which you can add innocent workers to as well.
- Is avoidable
- Can't be avoided
Racism
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Not only is every human in the game white, but almost all of them are British. The only exceptions are the handful of Americans who survived the fall of Tesla City and the Norwegian Fridtjof Nansen. Perhaps justified was that it was stated in the loading screen that the southern colonies were the first to fall, being unprepared for cold weather, though this leaves the question of what happened to the Inuit, Yupik, Iñupiat, Chukchi, and various other indigenous groups that live in the far north. Convicts hired in The Last Autumn are depicted as certainly not white.
- Can't be avoided
Law Enforcement
- Is avoidable
Police Brutality
Guard station or Faith Keepers
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Once you have a Guard Station or seat of the Faith Keepers, you can use guards or Faith Keepers to break up protests and keep order. The extreme end of the Order path sees the Captain rule New London with an iron fist, crushing dissent and creating a police state.
- Can't be avoided
Prison & Incarceration
The Last Autumn DLC
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In The Last Autumn, there is an option to build a penal colony, which adds convicts to the workforce as forced labor, which you can add innocent workers to as well.
- Is avoidable
Mental Health
- Can't be avoided
Misc. Mental Health
Isolation, loneliness, stress, guilt
ShowHide potential spoilers or triggers
The setting of the game, a frozen world with limited resources, can create a sense of isolation and loneliness. In The Last Autumn DLC, you receive a message from London: the Frost is coming and after a week or so there'll be too much ice to send any more supply ships to you. They'll send an icebreaker a few days after that to get you out, but you'll be completely isolated until then, left to survive and finish the generator and any optional upgrades with what you have got there. It can be immensely stressful, but if you manage to finish the generator and ALL optional upgrades before the shipments cease, you simply evacuate on them instead, avoiding the entire last part of the scenario.
- Can't be avoided
- Can't be avoided
Natural Events
- Can't be avoided
- Can't be avoided
- Can't be avoided
Storms
Randomly occurring storms will drastically lower the temperature
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The end of the superstorms can have has temperatures spike from -150 degrees to -30 degrees in minutes. The end-game scenario of A New Home involves surviving a superstorm event that drops the world's temperature up to -150°C. If players manage to make it through, the superstorm will end with the temperature returning to normal.
- Can't be avoided
Non-Sexual Abuse & Violence
- Can't be avoided
- Is avoidable
Child Endangerment
ShowHide potential spoilers or triggers
The game includes a mechanic where children can be put to work, either in certain roles or all roles. If you have full child labor implemented, you can have children doing a variety of tasks, from the physically strenuous woodcutting and mining to healing patients on the brink of death, without any adult supervision. However, for some reason, children can never be employed as hunters, as well as staff for Order/Faith buildings (except the House of Healing).
- Is avoidable
- Can't be avoided
Misc. Non-Sexual Abuse & Violence
Worker abuse (depending on choices)
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Heavily prevalent in The Last Autumn DLC (can neglect all work site amenities and labor safety measures, prioritize generator work over safety, and ignore strikes by bringing in scabs) & in The Fall of Winterhome DLC (putting in the bare minimum effort to quell unrest)
- Is avoidable
Mutilation
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Some of the pictures in the game contain mutilated human bodies, corpses and surgeons performing surgery on bloodied human bodies.
- Can't be avoided
Phobias
- Can't be avoided
Automatonophobia
Depending on choices
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Automatons are big. They look like Boston Dynamics-style quadrupeds that tower over most buildings, and they replace all the workers inside it by climbing onto the building and attaching themselves to it. They recharge by marching to the nearest heat generator and plugging their steam core into the furnace. If you develop them, Automatons can be assigned to Medical Posts and Infirmaries after researching (or being given in an event) Medical Automatons, thus replacing the human Engineers which would normally staff these facilities and implying this trope.
- Is avoidable
Hemophobia
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Various still images depict blood, including showing bound prisoners being beaten, patients and corpses covered by bloodstained sheets, etc.
- Can't be avoided
Misc. Phobias
Decidophobia (Fear of making decisions)
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Anthropophobia (Fear of people or society), Apotemnophobia (fear of amputees), Atelophobia (Fear of imperfection), Atychiphobia (Fear of failure), Autophobia (Fear of being alone, isolation), Chionophobia (Fear of snow), Dystychiphobia (Fear of accidents), Ecclesiophobia (Fear of church), Electrophobia (Fear of electricity), Enochlophobia (Fear of crowds), Enosiophobia (Fear of having committed an unpardonable sin or of criticism), Frigophobia (Fear of cold or cold things), Heresyphobia (Fear of challenges to official doctrine or of radical deviation), Homichlophobia (Fear of fog), Homilophobia (Fear of sermons), Hypegiaphobia (Fear of responsibility), Iatrophobia (Fear of doctors), Katagelophobia (Fear of ridicule), Mastigophobia (fear of punishment), Mechanophobia (fear of machines), Methyphobia (fear of alcohol), Nosocomephobia (Fear of hospitals), Pagophobia (fear of ice or frost), Pathophobia (Fear of disease), Peniaphobia (fear of poverty), Pharmacophobia (fear of medications), Ponophobia (fear of overworking), Psychrophobia (fear of cold), Pyrophobia (Fear of fire), Seplophobia (fear of decaying matter), Thanatophobia (Fear of dying), Zeusophobia (Fear of God or gods)
- Can't be avoided
Necrophobia
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Citizens can suffer and die due to various factors, including the harsh environment, sickness, or decisions made by the player. You have to decide what to do with your dead -- eat them, bury them, or pile them up. If the situation becomes dire, the city can resort to cannibalism by passing the "Alternative Food Source" law. Anything involving desecrating the corpses, such as mass burial and fertilizer, will take a hit on the Hope meter. One such event involves whether to give your people proper burials after witnessing a widow crying and holding her dead husband's hand in the mass graves. One of the locations your scouts can find is a cairn with both people and supplies buried beneath it. Your scouts insist in their report that the supplies were not intended to be grave goods for the dead to use in the afterlife. If that were the case, then your scouts would be grave-robbers after all.
- Can't be avoided
- Can't be avoided
Physical Health & Body Issues
- Can't be avoided
Hospitalization
Infirmaries, care homes, healing houses
ShowHide potential spoilers or triggers
The Healing House, an unlockable structure from the Faith and Spiritual Strength path, is good for providing hope but, being manned by clergy with little medical experience, may not actually help with the general health of the patients.
- Can't be avoided
Misc. Physical Health & Body Issues
Starvation, illness, malnutrition
ShowHide potential spoilers or triggers
Citizens can suffer and die due to various factors, including the harsh environment, sickness, or decisions made by the player. Once you've unlocked it, you can use 'Triage' as many times as you'd like. This kills a fraction of your sick citizens while instantly healing another.
- Can't be avoided
Pain & Physical Suffering
Frostbite
- Can't be avoided
Politics
Dictatorship
You can establish a theocratic dictatorship, although it's not necessary to complete the game.
ShowHide potential spoilers or triggers
After signing New Order, one of the events you can be confronted with is an engineer who is said to be "spreading lies about you, accusing you of tyranny." You can let him be, raising discontent; you can have him imprisoned; or you can have guards beat him up. If you take the latter option, the engineer will be right back at the accusations after getting out of medical treatment, claiming that your actions just reaffirm his point; you can let him be at this point, raising discontent, or you can have guards silence him for good. The extreme end of the Order path sees the Captain rule New London with an iron fist, crushing dissent and creating a police state.
- Is avoidable
Misc. Politics
ShowHide potential spoilers or triggers
As a leader, the player can enact radical laws and policies to ensure the survival of your city. Some of these decisions may involve sacrificing individual freedoms for the greater good. You may wind up building a propaganda center or declaring yourself to be the bringer of God's will.
- Can't be avoided
- Is avoidable
- Is avoidable
Religion & Sects
Cults
ShowHide potential spoilers or triggers
You have the choice to build your society around faith or law and order, the faith route posing you as an all-knowing leader. Effectively, you build a cult. Even if you don't go down this route, dialogue heavily refers to Christian notions of faith, keeping with the Victorian English setting. In The Last Autumn DLC, if you choose the union laws path and go all the way, the place will devolve into a mass-murdering communist cult (killing three people a day while chanting about the glory of the working class).
- Is avoidable
- Is avoidable
Religion
You can establish a theocratic dictatorship, although it's not necessary to complete the game. Even if you don't go down this route, dialogue heavily refers to Christian notions of faith, keeping with the Victorian English setting.
ShowHide potential spoilers or triggers
You have the choice to build your society around faith or law and order, the faith route posing you as an all-knowing leader. Effectively, you build a cult. Even if you don't go down this route, dialogue heavily refers to Christian notions of faith, keeping with the Victorian English setting. Cities that choose the Faith law path can build, prayer houses, temples, and shrines. While these buildings resemble Christian churches, cathedrals, and steeples respectively, they don't use the crucifix as their symbol and the actual tenets of this faith are left vague apart from implied monotheism.
- Is avoidable
- Can't be avoided
Sex & Erotica (Consensual)
Sex Work
Depending on choices
ShowHide potential spoilers or triggers
During game, a pub can employ sex workers or be turned into a "House of Pleasure" with accompanying text: "Our hard-working people deserve all the relief we can provide, and some of them yearn for the pleasures of flesh." Nothing's explicitly shown. If you do create a brothel, an event states that a client was known for abusing the sex workers. It is only spoken of second hand, but a random event has a sex worker complete suicide. If you institute the New Religion and have the brothel, one of your preachers denounces a woman as a harlot in a sermon and she gets beaten up by a mob. If you turn to the Faith Keepers to have them punished, they shrug and reply that they won't punish people for doing what's right — which, again, is beating up a woman for her being forced into sex work by you.
- Is avoidable
Sexual Abuse
Sexual Assault
Depending on choices
ShowHide potential spoilers or triggers
There is an event where a woman complains that guards are sexually assaulting her as well as other women. The player has the choice to ignore them. If you create a brothel, (House of pleasure law), an event states that a client was known for abusing the sex workers.
- Is avoidable
Traumatic Events
Accidents
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You can have people crushed by machinery, cave-ins and similar disasters. Some events they can be saved, others they're guaranteed dead.
- Can't be avoided
Apocalypse
The entire premise is rebuilding civilization after an apocalyptic ice age.
ShowHide potential spoilers or triggers
While it is difficult to tell, it appears to be a class 2 or 3b apocalypse. What we know for certain though is that a combination of volcanic eruptions in southeast Asia, the Sun cooling, and a possible meteor strike in Patagonia have plunged Europe and North America into an endless winter and caused crop failure and chaos in the Southern Hemisphere. If one piece of information potentially found in Endless Play ends up being true, it could actually be a Class 3a apocalypse, caused by a superweapon called "Saffron Cloud" developed by an unknown nation. However, this was considered malicious slander by the pre-Frost British government.
- Can't be avoided
Mass Casualty Event
The entire premise is rebuilding civilization after an apocalyptic ice age. Additionally mass casualty events may occur throughout gameplay, including in The Last Autumn DLC.
ShowHide potential spoilers or triggers
In The Last Autumn DLC, if you choose the union laws path and go all the way, the place will devolve into a mass-murdering communist cult (killing three people a day while chanting about the glory of the working class).
- Can't be avoided
- Can't be avoided
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