Frostpunk 2: 10 Beginner Tips & Tricks To Survive The Next Whiteout (2025)

Frostpunk 2 is one of the most brutal citybuilders, and survival in its frosted wastelands is no simple feat. To survive, you'll need to ensure that not only are the basic needs of your citizens met but also that creature comforts are provided for them lest you anger them and they stop working. On top of keeping your citizens happy, you must also cater to the desires of the factions that make up your Council by passing favorable legislature, as these groups can upset the balance of power if ignored.

If you're a new player to the game, it's understandable that you might be overwhelmed by everything there is to manage, mainly if you didn't play the original Frostpunk when it came out in 2018. It combines both survival and city-builder elements, making it much more challenging than similar games in the genre. In order to set yourself up for success, it's essential to lay plans as soon as you finish the tutorial, as wasted time means death when the Generator is all that stands between you and the biting cold. Here are 10 ways to survive in Frostpunk 2's desolate tundra.

10 Build Logistics Districts And Explore The Snow

Scouting Is An Essential Way To Increase Resource Gain

When you first begin Chapter 1 of Frostpunk 2, you'll soon be faced with an issue; the coal reserves within New London's bounds are limited, and you'll need to head out into the wasteland to find a permanent source of fuel. On your way to the Old Dreadnought to the west, you'll run into a few exploration nodes that offer chances to get additional resources and workforce.

If you've got the infrastructure to support additional workers, take them in when you can. This ensures you'll have enough population to produce whichever resource you're low on whenever you might need it. You'll also find that some of these nodes provide a trickle of resources as long as you have the Frostland Teams to support their harvesting. While these nodes are limited, they're a cheap way of gathering extra food, coal, and other materials without building new districts.

9 Embrace Or Defeat The Cold?

Defeat Is Easier, So If You're A First Time Player, Pick This For Now

At the beginning of Chapter 2, you can embrace or defeat the cold. This ideological choice will impact your efforts to survive as a society in the future, so it's a tough one to make. For newer players or players who aren't confident in managing more than one settlement at a time, choosing to defeat the cold is simpler.

This choice will see you siding with the Stalwarts, one of the factions in the city of New London. Your research efforts will go towards improving your ability to heat your districts, which comes in the form of leaning into oil and steam as heat and power sources. If you choose to embrace the cold, you'll be tasked to spread out and settle in the Frostlands, which can be tricky for players who already might be struggling to maintain New London.

8 Maximize District Efficiency Using Hubs and Buildings

Make Sure Your Buildings Align With Your Goals

With how much there is going on in Frostpunk 2—menus, upgrade trees, laws, districts, and more—it's easy to lose track of everything you need to manage. That's where the true difficulty of this game lies; your ability to manage both the micro and macro of your economy while keeping your city afloat is no small task, but that's your role as Steward. If you're struggling, Quick Tips made an excellent guide on YouTube about maximizing district efficiency. To do this, ensure you're taking advantage of everything you're researching.

There's very little in use researching a new building if you never build it in its applicable district. If you find yourself lacking resources with plenty of districts already constructed, make sure that you're expanding those districts and putting buildings on them, or else all that research will go to waste. Additionally, make sure you're using district hubs to increase productivity and Heating Hubs to reduce heat needs in surrounding districts.

7 Aim Your Research Effectively

Don't Research Willy-Nilly, Instead, Think About Your Pain Points

If you're anything like me, you want to have as many options as possible when it comes to resource generation, but there are a few reasons why researching everything isn't always the answer. For one, it's nice to have your research facility open in case you need to quickly research something as part of a negotiation to pass an important law.

Additionally, you might find yourself needing a solution to a resource shortage, and having to wait for unimportant research to finish before you can follow something more useful is annoying and can be detrimental. Instead, use your research wisely; try to predict where your shortages are going to be, whether it's heat, materials, or something else, and have the right buildings to give you that extra bump, which can be the difference between failure and success.

6 Sometimes, Expand Districts Rather Than Building New

Do You Need A Marginal Increase? Or Is There Another Problem?

It's tempting to build another district every time you find yourself low on any one resource, but sometimes, the number of districts you have isn't the problem; their efficiency is. Making a new district is expensive and often takes a workforce that might be needed elsewhere. Expanding your district takes fewer workers and gives you another building slot that can bump up your output while only marginally increasing your heat need.

5 Maximize Heat Stamp Income

Don't Be Afraid To Give The Factions A Shakedown

One of the best ways to raise heat stamps is by "taxing" your factions. This will allow you to have enough Heatstamps for new buildings, districts, research, and Frostbreaking, all essential to maintaining your city. To get more Heatstamps from your factions, click the faction's icon at the bottom of the screen, then choose the "Raise Funds" action. Poplove Gaming has a guide explaining all of this on YouTube, so check that out if you're still lost.

Raising funds will cause you to lose some of that faction's favor, but this can be regained in a few ways. One of the best ways to get a faction to like you is by granting them an agenda, which allows that faction to decide which law should be up for vote next on the Council floor. You can still vote either way you want, but you'll have to pass whatever resolution they propose to gain the most favor possible. However, that's not to say you have to grant every request a faction makes.

4 It's Okay To Refuse A Faction Request

Sometimes, Losing Favor With A Faction Is Better Than Giving Them Their Way

Frostpunk 2 is a game that presents the player with many moral and ethical dilemmas, and the game's factions often present these issues. MySpaceGuide ranks these factions on YouTube, and it's important to consider them when making decisions. Is it better to give everyone a universal basic income, or should we allow slackers to die from starvation until they become productive? If you disagree with the direction a faction wants to go, feel free to say no. This is why you're the Steward, after all.

If you find your overall trust falling low, worry not. There are quite a few ways to increase trust in Frostpunk 2, so losing a bit doesn't mean the end of your playthrough. You can increase it by pandering to factions and keeping your promises to them, but you can also do this by making sure your citizens stay alive and comfortable.

3 Put Multiple Resource Nodes In A District

This Doesn't Increase Output But Will Keep Your District Going Longer

The tutorial isn't super clear about this, but placing a district on multiple resource nodes will keep that district up and running longer. This allows you to build fewer districts total, saving you prefabs and workforce in the long run. Of course, this also means that your actual output will be lower than it would be if you had one district for every node.

If you want to, you can max out the number of districts you build to increase your output, but this will quickly run you into a common problem I have: not enough workforce. Supporting your population in Frostpunk 2 is tricky, as you have to maintain heat, food, and shelter for your citizens, and the more workers you have, the higher this demand will be. Building fewer districts forces you to play a little slower but will allow you to get the most out of the workers you have without putting too severe of a demand on you to find more.

2 Deep Drill For Infinite Resources

If You Chose To Defeat The Frost, Tap Into Deep Resource Nodes

A few nodes on your map have a small infinity sign next to the resource icon; these are Deep Resources. Once you choose to defeat the frost at the beginning of Chapter 2, you'll be able to research the Deep Melting Drill. This is a building that allows you to tap into the deep veins of numerous resources, providing a stable and near-infinite supply of whatever resource they're built on.

The only drawback of the Deep Melting Drill is its cost. The building requires 300-400 workers, 40 Prefabs, 80 Heatstamps, and a core. Cores are notoriously hard to come by, so it's essential to ensure you're building the drill on the one or two resources that are the most scarce on your map. Once you do, you should be set up nicely for a consistent supply of your chosen resource(s).

1 Place Districts Together To Reduce Heat Cost

Avoid Squalor By Separating Industry Districts And Housing Districts

As mentioned in the tutorial, placing districts next to each other reduces their heat cost. This might seem marginal, and it is, but in the long run, you'll save more and more as your districts grow. What started as one housing district benefiting from just one other might later turn into four or five clustered together, and if you can get them lined up right, they'll all be reducing each other's heat cost thanks to their proximity to one another.

Another reason to cluster your districts together is to allow them all to benefit from Hubs. Whether these are storage Hubs or Heating Hubs, having like districts next to each other makes a clean, organized city that's both easy to navigate at a glance and keep warm. Warmth is the most essential mechanic in Frostpunk 2, so follow these tips to set up your new playthrough for success.

Source: Quick Tips/YouTube, Poplove Gaming/YouTube, MySpaceGuide/YouTube

5 Images

5 Images

Frostpunk 2

Strategy

Survival

City Builder

Franchise

Frostpunk

Platform(s)

PC

Released

September 20, 2024

Developer(s)

11 Bit Studios

Publisher(s)

11 Bit Studios

Engine

Unreal Engine 5

ESRB

M For Mature 17+ Due To Blood, Drug Reference, Sexual Themes, Strong Language, Violence