Frostpunk 2: Prologue Scenario Guide

Frostpunk 2's Story Mode kicks off with the prologue scenario, The Wanderers. It's a great way to learn the ropes of gathering resources and keeping your people alive, but it's not exactly a tutorial. It's entirely possible to fail The Wanderers if you aren't careful, even on the lowest difficulty settings. When you do succeed, it'll be a nail-biter as the timer nears zero.

Frostpunk 2's Game Director On The Game's Political Influences And Telling A Story About Human Nature

Frostpunk 2 turns its focus to the big picture and tells a bigger story. We sit down with Łukasz Juszczyk to talk about the ambitious project.

If getting enough food to survive the Whiteout is proving to be an insurmountable challenge, or if you just want to plan ahead for whatever dangers Frostland has for you, this guide has everything you need to know about The Wanderers.

This guide was developed by playing on Officer difficulty. You may need to adapt or streamline your strategy to succeed on higher settings.

Getting Started

Before you can do anything else, you need to secure a source of Oil and activate the Furnace in the wrecked Dreadnought spanning the canyon at the center of the map. Frostbreak your way to the wrecked Oil Car just east of the Dreadnought, making sure to dig out the tile with the Oil icon itself. Since you can break up to eight tiles at a time, you can also break out the Prefab Parts tile to the south while you're at it to save some resources.

Unlike most maps, you can get away with Frostbreaking in snakelike lines; with the exception of your Housing Districts (see below), there's no real need to group buildings together in clumps.

Once an Extraction District is completed on the Oil Car, you can turn on the Furnace by clicking on the Dreadnought and toggling the switch on the Generator Tab. Unlike the original Frostpunk, there is no need to wait for your fuel stockpile to build up.

Next, build another Extraction District on the Prefab Parts tile; while it's being built, Frostbreak the area around the Dreadnought, both to the northeast toward the ravine and on the western side of the canyon.

Best Housing Layout

Once you've made a little extra room north of the Dreadnought, build two Housing Districts. The first should have three tiles touching the Dreadnought, and the second should have three tiles touching the first Housing District. Building them this way provides a Heating bonus, which saves precious Oil and keeps your people healthy. Eventually, you'll need a third Housing District to make sure that everyone has shelter; when the time comes, follow the same rules, Frostbreaking more space if you have to.

Pause the game any time you're making a decision or building something. You can't afford to waste any time with the Whiteout coming.

7 Best Post-Apocalyptic City Builders

These city builders require you to survive in a post-apocalyptic world.

How To Get Enough Food

The main objective of the scenario is to stockpile 40,000 Food before the Whiteout arrives. You can always see how much time you have left in the upper left corner of the screen. As soon as your basic needs are met, start building Extraction Districts on Food Tiles - as many as you can, as quickly as you can. The sooner they're completed, the sooner you can start stockpiling.

You need at least two Food Districts active at once to feed your people and have enough of a surplus left over to stockpile.

There are five Food tiles on the map; three on the canyon's western ridge, one in the canyon itself to the north, and one at the mouth of the canyon to the south. You'll need all five to come up with forty thousand, but due to your limited resources - namely Workforce - you can only realistically operate three Food Districts at a time. The rest of your Workforce will need to go to producing Oil, Prefabs, and Materials to keep the colony running.

In peak conditions, your Colony should have three Oil Districts, three Food Districts, and one each Prefab and Material Districts in operation if you want all your needs to be met and still be able to build when needed.

Your initial Prefab District, and eventually your Food Districts, will run out of resources before the end of the scenario. Keep an eye on how much they have left and do your best to have a replacement built before they are fully depleted. Once a District is out of resources, it's worthless; demolish it to get back some Scraps and Prefabs.

How To Increase Food Production

Even with several Food Districts operating, you still won't make it to 40,000 before the Whiteout; you can see an estimate of how long it will take to save up under the timer. To make sure you meet the goal, there are two harsh but necessary measures you'll have to take:

• Reduce your people's rations; click the Wanderers Community icon at the bottom center of the screen and choose the Tighten Belts command. This will reduce the amount of Food that your people eat each week, allowing you to save more of what you produce.
• Institute Emergency Shifts in the Food Districts. As soon as a Food District is completed, click on it and activate the Emergency Shift button at the bottom center of its window. This will increase its production but make the workers unhappy. Don't worry too much about that last part - as long as you don't institute Emergency Shifts at other Extraction District types, you'll be fine.

How To Increase Food Storage Capacity

Your basic Food Storage can only hold 10,000 units, meaning it's impossible to stockpile 40,000 without some upgrades. You'll need to build two Food Stockpiles to bring the capacity up to exactly 40,000; as nice as it would be to go higher, you probably can't afford more than that.

Food Stockpiles reduce the Workforce needed by nearby Food Districts, so build them with the bonus in mind. It's a small benefit, but you need every advantage you can get!

Important Events And Decisions

There are several decisions that you'll need to make as part of events that crop up during the scenario.

A Mysterious Symbol: The Captain's Legacy

Around Week 33, your people will find the body of a scout from New London, the settlement from the original Frostpunk. This event allows you to choose which path New London took in 1887; the path of Order, focused on militant discipline and ceaseless toil, or the path of Faith, built around devotion to a new religion.

The decision you take here won't affect anything in the current scenario, but it will determine the starting factions of New London when you progress to Chapter One. While most of the population will consist of civilian New Londoners and Frostlanders, a minority faction of more fanatical citizens will also be present, and may affect votes in the Council, based on your choice. Your decision also determine which Laws you can pass to cement your rule.

• If you choose Order, the Stalwarts will be present in New London. Order Laws are focused on quashing dissent and negating the effects of Tension.
• If you choose Faith, the Faithkeepers will be present in New London. Faith Laws are focused on maintaining Trust and keeping the populace happy despite hardships.
• If you claim that you don't recognize the scout's symbol, then New London will be aligned with Order or Faith, chosen at random. You won't find out which until you progress to the next chapter.

The Whiteout Draws Near: A Sacrifice

If the timer is starting to run low and you haven't yet built up enough Food, you'll receive an event that lets you choose an emergency decision.

• If a Food District is built on the southernmost tile, you'll have the option to butcher the seals there for a large amount of Food.
• Alternatively, you can allow the colony's elders to sacrifice themselves, reducing food consumption permanently.
• If you think you can still make it without resorting to either decision, you can decline both.

Choosing either emergency decision reduces the morale of the people and prevents you from getting the scenario's best ending, but otherwise has no real effect on the campaign.

9 Non-Survival Games Where Temperature Can Kill You

Survival games often expect players to fend off the elements, and extreme heat or cold is deadly. What other games do this?