FROSTPUNK: CONSOLE EDITION

To say Frostpunk is fun would be like saying watching The Road is fun. It’s engaging, challenging, inventive and unique. It cleverly re-purposes old genre tropes, and embraces the rigors of micromanaging dire people in a dark time with such earnest that it’s hard not to get charmed into hours of sadistic yet satisfying struggle.

Frostpunk: Console Edition is a fantastic port: it overhauled its UI and controls intelligently, it runs well, and its priced fairly. At times it doesn’t even feel like a port, but like a version of the game that was developed alongside the PC version. Nothing about the brutal Frostpunk experience has been lost in the translation, and for those who heard all the praise last year but lacked the requisite PC they can now sit down and play 11 Bit’s masterpiece on the platform of their choice (well, barring the Switch it sounds like: sorry Nintendo fans).

Frostpunk is, without a doubt, not an easy game and requires extensive strategizing and multiple playthroughs to succeed. It takes a lot of effort and a fair amount of alertness to get the job done, but once your decisions prevail and your city is thriving, the sense of accomplishment is unlike no other. With its intense premise and the pressure of making tough choices, Frostpunk is undeniably one of the most challenging and addicting city-building strategy games I have ever played.