Frostpunk is an incredible game about leading a society in a harsh and unforgiving world. You are constantly faced with challenges both within and outside of your group as you make the tough calls to ensure the heat stays on.

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There’s a lot to learn and the this game has some stark differences from other titles. If you’re diving into this game for the first time it’s important to know what you’re getting into and how to best enjoy your experience. So here are some things to keep in mind as you enter this frozen world.

10 It’s Survival Strategy

Frostpunk is a game that hybridizes a lot of different gaming genres. At it’s core it’s a real-time strategy survival game. You are tasked with leading a group of people in an effort to expand for the sake of survival.

Because of this unique nature some players are frustrated by mistaken expectations. This isn’t a strategy game like Starcraft and it isn’t a survival game like Don’t Starve, it’s a bit of both mixed with Sid Meier’s Civilization. Go in with an open mind and few expectations and you’ll appreciate what this unique game has to offer.

9 New People Are Hard To Come By

A great example of how this game is different than others is that you have a finite amount of people that are extremely hard to replace. You cannot build, breed, clone, or summon new people into your community like you can in other games.

You can recruit people you find in the wild, but for the most part the people you start with are the people you end the scenario with. It’s important to keep them alive and healthy as they are a valuable resource.

8 Heat Is The Key To Everything

The key resource of this game is the most fickle, heat. The relentless snow storms and dropping temperatures are the biggest and most prevalent threat in this game and the only way to fight back is to keep the fires going.

Heat is not only necessary for keeping everyone alive it also keeps the lights on, keep morale up, and ensure you aren’t betrayed or exiled. Above all else you need to keep the generator running so that important heat continues to radiate out into the community.

7 You Have A Limited Number Of Steam Cores

Steam Cores are an important resource for building the more advanced things in your community. The problem is you only have so many you can use before you run out. This makes it incredibly important to budget your steam cores to build the things you absolute need.

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Granted you can obtain more via scouts, but this is inconsistent and never a guarantee. You can go quite a while without ever finding a steam core so don’t rely upon this as a means of keeping a steady supply. Budget your original stash and treat each new one as a blessing.

6 Start Scouting Early

There are a number of things you can find in the world in addition to the aforementioned Steam Cores so it’s important you get Scouts out searching as quickly as possible. This requires building a Beacon and will require selecting five individuals to go Scouting.

This can be tough when each member of the community serves a vital role in survival, but the benefit that comes from scouting far outweighs what you’d receive if they operated as standard workers. Pull five people from whatever task it considered least essential and send them off exploring.

5 Build Up Your Storage

Unless you’re a talented player or running one of the easier scenarios you’ll find that resources will largely be scarce. That being said, it’s important to build up your storage early on in case you do find yourself with a surplus.

If you don’t have the means to store or use what your scouts find or your factories produce you run the risk of losing that extra. Even if it feels like you’re wasting the resources to build storage you’ll be glad you did when the scouts come back with a windfall or production does better than expected.

4 Plan Ahead

A large component of this game is planning ahead. Regardless of the scenario you need to have a larger goal your community is shooting for to survive. This is largely for two reasons, to ensure resources aren’t wasted and you don’t get sidetracked by the smaller issues.

When problems arise it’s tempting to throw everything you have at them until the problem goes away. But if doing so sabotages your long term goal then it’s not worth it. Stick to the plan wherever possible and make sure you’re continually making progress towards the end goal and you’ll be fine.

3 Advancing Tech Is Crucial

A key component of this is ensuring you’re progressing along the tech trees. In the beginning of the game it’s tempting to amass resources without spending them, but there are only so many things you can do without advanced tech.

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For instance your ability to gather wood becomes severely hindered when you cut down the last tree in the crater. It seems like there’s plenty to go around but you’ll go through it faster than you think. Make sure you’re learning how to gather that lumber in other ways so you have options when the last frozen tree falls.

2 Be Prepared For Sacrifices

No matter how well you plan things out and store up for the future you are going to run into problems that can’t be solved easily. Sometimes you have to make the impossible call and sacrifice resources, progress, or even your own people to keep everything from collapsing.

It sounds harsh but allowing a few people to freeze to death rather than burning the last of your coal reserves might be a legitimate strategy to keeping the community as a whole alive. This game constantly requires you to make judgment calls so get in the habit of looking for the lesser of two evils when creative solutions aren’t available.

1 This Game Is Brutal

The last thing to keep in mind when starting this game is that it’s brutal. It’s brutal in the sense that it’s difficult and has a steep learning curve and it’s also brutal in the sense that it can be a dark game with very mature themes.

Part of this game’s appeal is the tough questions it asks of the player. Survival of the community might mean sending children into the coal mines or restricting freedoms to ensure the heat stays on. This game doesn’t shy away from showing the horrors of the apocalypse and while this makes it a great experience for some, it might be too much for others.

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