It somehow feels more than only a year ago, but Frostpunk 2 has been out since September 2024 and in that time it has continued to have a variety of updates, mostly minor, to address balance changes and technical bugs. Critical and audience reception has generally been good but some fans of the rather punishing difficulty of the original Frostpunk have been less impressed by the slightly more easy-going successor (although it can and will absolutely freeze you to death if you play on higher difficulties). Fractured Utopias is the first paid DLC for the game, and focuses solely on the Utopia Builder game mode, Frostpunk’s version of endless or sandbox mode. Fractured Utopias adds significantly mode content to this mode, making it feel less of an afterthought and more of a fully-fledged way to play in its own right, particularly since the DLC adds in some content and gameplay systems unique to the mode.
The factions of the story campaign mode, which were a relatively minor element in their own right, have been expanded on in a variety of ways. You can now start a game with some pre-existing reputation with the various factions; choosing three favourites, as well as selecting a preferred faction to ally with. The faction you select will then influence your utopia tree, a new technology tree with various upgrades. Each faction has a unique tree, meaning you’re incentivized to help achieve their side objectives and to keep them happy. For example, the Technocrats may require certain laws to be enacted or certain buildings to be constructed, but these will sometimes not be to the liking of the Venturers or the Icebloods.
Similarly your faction will have its own special buildings, abilities and resources, allowing you to play in some fairly different styles. The Technocrats can speed up the efficiency of various city industries and services, tweaking the demand and output, or the Icebloods can frostbreak much larger areas, at the expense of injuries to the workers. The more you unlock on the Utopia tree, the more your playstyle can be adjusted, meaning some players may prefer the style of certain factions over others. It also influences what type of city you build; an egalitarian democracy, or an iron-fist dictatorship.
Utopia Builder also contains two new optional narrative tales, which act as additional challenges for your city. The Doomsayers tale sees the emergence of a faction of nihilist citizens who sow chaos and disorder, forcing you to deal with their insurrection. The Plague tale (not A Plague Tale) focuses on the emergence of a deadly illness ravaging the population, forcing you to find a cure before it’s too late. If you opt-in to a tale, you must succeed in completing its main objective, or your city (and your campaign) will be doomed. This is in addition to your campaign ambition (building a big city, or expanding your population), which is also optional.
The biggest issue holding Fractured Utopias back is the bugs it has introduced, some performance related but many others impacting gameplay. Some players have reported the new tales in particular have issues which can prevent them from finishing. I didn’t have anything gamebreaking myself but others have reported myriad crashes and glitches, which considering how long the game has been out is very disappointing. Hopefully more patches will be arriving to address this, but as this review comes 3 months after the release and major problems are still not fixed, it’s clearly taking a while.
Fractured Utopias is definitely a DLC for fans of the base game, and for those who have already finished the story mode, since it contains nothing in the way of its own tutorial. Brand new players should absolutely play the great main story first before they dive into Utopia Builder, but this DLC certainly fleshes out that mode in meaningful ways. Hopefully the bugs and performance will be addressed soon, and give Frostpunk 2 the legs to be enjoyed for many more years to come.
Hopefully things get cleaned up. I refuse to buy buggy products anymore and hoping they’ll fix it later.