Frostpunk 2: Breach of Trust Review – New Dilemmas, Familiar Frost

Frostpunk 2: Breach of Trust Review

I have a friend — we’ll call him Sean — who would make a terrible First Citizen, the leader role in Frostpunk 2: Breach of Trust. Forget weighty decisions that impact entire colonies; Sean agonizes for many minutes over what to order for breakfast. Egg McMuffin or Sausage McGriddle? Hashbrowns? Meanwhile, the drive through line grows longer and more impatient. I, on the other hand, chose the warmonger route in providing food for my citizens and never looked back. In the game, I mean, not at McDonald’s.

Frostpunk 2: Breach of Trust is the second DLC for 2024’s Frostpunk 2, following Fractured Utopias. The most obvious change is the setting. New Edinburgh is a city built on a volcano, which provides an abundance of geothermal energy. Because the unwise leadership of New Edinburgh over-exploits the resource, shifts in the geology under the city threaten catastrophe. Now a catacylsmic volcanic eruption is on the way, the citizens are starving and discontent and you are the new leader. Have fun with that.

Big Choices

While New Edinburgh is a literal hot mess, the world is generally still ice age cold. Aurora is a nearby colony built on a frozen lake. Aurora is low on energy but has enough food to spare. You can see where this is going. Do you set up a diplomatic relationship with Aurora, providing energy in exhange for food? Or do you raise an army and invade the neighbors, plundering their resources? Your starving citizens might revolt either way. Just like in Frostpunk 2, there are virtually no decisions without consequences.

Let’s say you decide to wage war and sieze Aurora’s treasure for New Edinburgh. The expansion provides a number of mechanics and structures geared towards that end. You can build barracks to train soldiers and factories to build devastating heavy weapons. The battles are not played out in real time, however, which is a little disappointing.

If you elect to follow the warmonger path, a new Resistance mechanic complicates the situation, with ongoing citizen unrest, sabotage and violence interrupting your economy and success. If you don’t want to allocate resources to the military industrial complex, you can try to exort and bully Aurora into cooperating, which can ultimately backfire. Or, you can establish a peaceful relationship. This sounds good, but it comes with a lot of headaches, like increased costs and the need to manage another city.

Thin Ice

As a short standalone campaign, Frostpunk 2: Breach of Trust is an interesting change of pace and has a strong narrative foundation. Unlike Fractured Utopias, most of the new DLC’s mechanics, structures and units don’t carry over into the base game, making them unavailable in skirmishes. It’s also so linear and narrative-driven that the story beats definitely can feel more important than the player’s decisions and approaches.

Aesthetically, Frostpunk 2: Breach of Trust is one with the base game, meaning it preserves the intricate, evocative and detailed environments of the original, with the volcanic/geothermal/military themes providing fresh content. On PC, there were a few bugs and small issues with UI being a little more janky than elegant. Audio, music and lighting are still impressive.

Frostpunk 2: Breach of Trust is a brief but interesting sidebar to Frostpunk 2, but doesn’t succeed in expanding the base game experience in the same way Fractured Utopias did. The tug-of-war between New Edinburgh and Aurora provides an engaging context for a strong narrative that doesn’t leave much room for player improvisation, limiting its replay value a little. Fans of Frostpunk 2 will enjoy a new set of moral dilemmas to explore, but I’m not sure Frostpunk 2: Breach of Trust is a must-play DLC.

***PC code provided by the publisher for review***