For the best experience, listen to this song while reading this blog post.
You’re the leader of a great city – a gem in the frozen wasteland that the Earth has become. It’s been a few years since the Earth started cooling to sub-zero temperatures, forcing you and your people to gather around the behemoth machines created to keep you from freezing to death, known as generators.
Now, your lead scientists and engineers have come to a consensus: a massive freeze is coming that will surely wipe out your entire city with all 300+ souls inside it. Unless, that is, you stockpile rations, coal, and insulate your homes against the cold snap.
You’re racing against the clock, sending your people out into the barren wasteland to scavenge for food – hunting what little life remains. All the while, your people grow weary of eating thin soup and working harsh hours. They threaten to overthrow your rule, not knowing that you’re the only thing keeping their heads above ice.
You know what must be done. Their labors will ultimately end up saving them, so you hope. Endure the cruelties – survival necessitates it, you think.
You have less than a week to command your people to stockpile enough resources to last the freeze. The storm will last no longer than a few days, but the freeze will wipe out any possibility of continuing to hunt or perform expeditions to find more lost souls.
So, with bated breath, you work tirelessly to command your people efficiently, gathering every drop of coal and every morsel of raw meat they can muster.
Frostpunk, developed by 11-bit studios in 2018, explores this premise of leading a city through the harshness of a post-apocalyptic winter wasteland. The tense gameplay of balancing the favor of the people while making the hard decisions to ensure their survival more than solidify Frostpunk as a game to remember, in my book.
However, the music, written entirely by award-winning composer Piotr Musiał, brings an edge to this game seen by almost none other.
The dramatic violin, complimented by the thudding drum beats, amplify the intensity of the situation you find yourself stuck in. The horns, not too dissimilar to the ones that sound off at the end of every workday, add a hint of oppression you force upon your people (for their own good).
Then, all of a sudden, at the 2:40 mark, the violins launch into a frenzy. Sawing back and forth on the strings, you feel the noose of winter oppression tighten around your neck as your people threaten to pull it tighter.
The strings, horns, and drums all build up and up and up, until you feel as though this storm will never end – only for it to dissipate as quickly as it came upon you. The wooshing of the cold winter wind leaves you and the track at the end as relief fills your body.
You have weathered this storm, at last. But, will there be a next one?
