Frostpunk: Beyond the Ice, the free-to-play mobile spinoff of the titular survival town management game, finally secures publishing

The popular and previously console/PC exclusive survival town-management game Frostpunk is finally set to make its way directly to our pockets with the announcement of a publishing deal with the legendary Com2Us for Frostpunk: Beyond the Ice. This free-to-play spinoff of the series, developed by mobile gaming giant NetEase alongside the original developers 11 Bit Studios, was originally announced all the way back in 2021, but had gone pretty much radio silent since. However, with the securing of a publisher, it's likely we will soon hear far more in-depth details about this spinoff.

Frostpunk, for the unaware, is a mixture of town management with a large portion of intense survival thrown in. Imagine SimCity, but all of your citizens are constantly starving, cold, and dying, and you’ve got Frostpunk. Given the setting of the harsh arctic climate during a second Industrial Revolution, it becomes your responsibility to manage your citizens' health and survival, alongside their dwindling resources. You’ll make difficult and even questionable moral decisions that can cause said citizens to rise up and revolt against you or support your ruling, all the while attempting to keep everyone alive and your city functioning.

Beyond the Ice seeks to take this gameplay and translate it into a free-to-play mobile format. According to NetEase, the game will hold many of the features players of the original are familiar with, but with some bells and whistles attached. These new features primarily revolve around social and multiplayer functionality, such as joining Guilds where you can then trade supplies and support one another to gain buffs, helping you along the way to keep your city alive and well.

With the securing of such an established publisher, and given that we are now nearly two and a half years past the original intended release date, hopefully, we will begin seeing and hearing more about this unique take on Frostpunk. Perhaps a release date is in our near future too, if we're lucky!