History VideoGame / Frostpunk

*** The end of the [[spoiler:superstorms]] can have has temperatures spike from -150 degrees to ''-30'' degrees in minutes. A great sign of a new hopeful dawn, if it wasn't for the fact that such a jump in temperatures in real life would kill everyone from temperature shock. This was understandably ignored due to the game's theme of survival and avert ShootTheShaggyDog.

** The cold mechanic works more like a subtraction modifier to building warmth. It's a good thing that's all it does considering it can get cold enough to ''freeze'' carbon dioxide.

** The player can increase the generator's output by overclocking it, at the risk of exploding and wiping out the city at 100% stress level. It provides an extra heat level to all affected areas without needing more coal, but you have at most about a day's worth of overclocking before you have to shut it off.

** In ''The Last Autumn'', [[spoiler:if you successfully complete the generator but your colony collapses before the rescue ship arrives, the rescuers will report back to London that you and your workers sacrificed yourselves to ensure the completion of the generator and will be remembered as heroes.]] %%Kindly consider adding image link or similar? Have not seen this ending before.

** In ''The Last Autumn'', there is an option to build a penal colony, which adds convicts to the workforce as forced labor, which you can add innocent workers to as well.

** ''The Fall of Winterhome'' has this on a massive scale: you have over 600 people in your city (including all the surrounding bases) and only 500 can fit onto a Dreadnought even after fully upgrading its capacity. Leave the kids behind and people will justly question you. Evacuate the engineers and there won't be anyone left to delay the explosion. Leave engineers to maintain the Generator and they will tell you that without them the Dreadnought will simply stall in the middle of nowhere.

** In ''The Last Autumn'', [[spoiler: siding with the workers and empowering them to form [[TrainingThePeacefulVillagers The People's Militia]]]] eventually results in an event where [[spoiler: the militia takes [[PersecutedIntellectuals some of the engineers who they deemed most abusive]], and [[VigilanteExecution are planning to lead them away to an execution]].]] The player's three options: Option 1) [[spoiler: Let the executions happen.]] Option 2) [[spoiler: Organize a "[[KangarooCourt Revolutionary Tribunal]]", pass [[ReignOfTerror the "Terror" law]], and construct the [[PublicExecution Execution Place]], where one person will be executed each day.]] Or Option 3) [[spoiler: Promise the "Revolutionary Tribunal", [[ILied but never get around to passing Terror]], causing Motivation to drop, and Discontent to rise, but saving the lives of the Engineers who would have been killed.]]

** ''The Last Autumn'' shows that [[spoiler:YOU, the PLAYER and Supervisor for Site 113 can be this to Winterhome and others. In particular, you can scam a competing French company out of valuable steam cores and even food as they starve, steal the supplies for Winterhome - thus likely helping to cause problems for them down the line - and oversee a brutal regime of oppression and totalitarian rule at the construction site, with the ability to rack up an absolutely unprecedented body count among the scenarios.]]

** You get an achievement for building a Generator in the Builders version of Endless mode with every possible fault. To get this, you have to Rush Construction (which is meant to be your last resort to prevent storms from derailing your progress) on every part of the Generator to complete it instantly instead having your workers build them normally. Aside from the scripted deaths, the result is a Generator [[https://imgur.com/a/07yqkrl so bad]] that you might as well just end your run right there. How bad? Imagine recreating [[spoiler:Winterhome's]] Generator.

** In ''The Last Autumn'', you receive a message from London: [[spoiler:the Frost is coming and after a week or so there'll be too much ice to send any more supply ships to you. They'll send an icebreaker a few days after that to get you out, but you'll be completely isolated until then, left to survive and finish the generator and any optional upgrades with what you have got there. It can be immensely stressful, but if you manage to finish the generator and ALL optional upgrades before the shipments cease, you simply evacuate on them instead, avoiding the entire last part of the scenario.]]

** ''The Last Autumn'': Finish constructing the Generator, [[spoiler: along with the 3 upgrades that allow it to accommodate a larger population before you are shipped back to Liverpool.]]

** ''The Arks'' has a mission where [[spoiler: the relief effort to New Manchester has to be accessed from the Beacon, which may escape notice as scouting missions are done through the Frostlands Map]]. Another is confusion between Tier-3 "Houses" and housing for the populace.
** A major issue of the Order and Faith paths, especially for ''A New Home'' and ''The Refugees'', is that there are no indications for the player to know whether they have [[spoiler:"Crossed the Line" for the GoldenEnding. Even if it was stated that they never "Crossed the Line", not having the achievement pop up on completion often makes players tear their hair out in frustration due to the wasted hours]].
*** For obtaining the "Golden Path" achievement in ''A New Home'', which is obtaining the best variation of the GoldenEnding, both Adaptation and Purpose laws signed actually count towards the achievement and there is no indicator if it is locked out by signing a harsh law or using a certain ability. Even signing the law alone to unlock other non-harsh laws or to placate the populace will get it locked out, even if it was never used.

* RareCandy: Steam cores. They cannot be manufactured, only looted from very specific encounters, from dismantling the buildings or automatons that use them, or from Tesla City in ''A New Home'' if you choose to explore and set up an outpost there. Steam cores are extremely vital to the running of a healthy city, being part of almost every important upgrade in the late game and the source of power for your automatons, as well as a requirement to even build some of the core structures like hothouses and coal mines.

** In ''The Last Autumn'', [[spoiler:choosing to have any engineers on the People's Militia should you side with the workers will result in either a minority engineer representation being harassed or brutalized, or a majority engineer representation attempting to pull a coup d'etat on you for depriving them of their privileges.]]
** In the same scenario, workers witnessing their comrades dying in the fires and explosions will make them go on strike since no one told them that the Generator is supposed to save people during the apocalypse, and they are not eager to die for company profits. On the other hand, serving them cocaine ensures their cooperation, but sooner or later it will affect their health.
** Also in ''The Last Autumn'', near the end, [[spoiler:you're told that the Frost is coming and London can no longer send you supplies. They'll send an icebreaker in a week to get you out, but you're on your own until then. Unless you finished all the work available to you, in which case you evacuate ''on the last supply ships'' and the game ends there. If there's nothing left for you to do, why stick around?]]
** The rescued workers in ''The Last Autumn'' [[spoiler:will cause strikes, but can be placated with a large amount of Food Rations. Turns out that people who have experienced starvation change their minds quickly when food is offered as a bribe.]]

* UngratefulBastard: [[spoiler: Workers you rescue from the frozen tundra in ''The Last Autumn'' will agitate your workers and cause strikes no matter how safe your worksite, or the relations with the local unions.]]

* {{Foreshadowing}}: Exploring around the wasteland in ''On the Edge'' can have you find an isolated camp outside of New London, which turns out to be [[spoiler:a quarantine area full of sick people, which is the first sign that things aren't going well back home]].

** In Endless Mode, one of the Frostlands locations you can explore is a man hanging from a tree [[MurderSuicide with his dead family at the base of it]]. Your scouting party refuses to even speculate on how they might have died.

** You get an achievement for building a Generator in the Builders version of Endless mode with every possible fault. To get this, you have to Rush Construction (which is your last resort to prevent storms from derailing your progress) on every part of the Generator to complete it instantly instead having your workers build them normally. Aside from the scripted deaths, the result is a Generator so bad that you might as well just your run right there. How bad? Imagine [[spoiler:Winterhome's]] Generator but even ''worse''.

* AchievementMockery: You get an achievement for failing the Serenity version of Endless mode. For context, Serenity provides the basic resource-gathering structures without having to research them, survivors are easier to come by (thanks to storm shelters having tons of them that periodically appear on the scouting map), and you start off with more survivors and resources in general. Basically the only way to fail is to do so deliberately by using overdrive on the generator for essentially no reason at all, or by not assigning the citizens anything to do for the first few days.

** Once created, the Scout and Outpost teams essentially stop having any sort of needs; they can go for days without any food, no matter the temperature. The only way to lose them is to either disband them personally, make a story decision in an event that results in their death or leave them outside the city when the storms are coming. Even when they return to your city, they don't have any needs for warmth or food. Having to micromanage that would most likely be too complicated since you're already busy with your city and figuring out where to send the parties as-is.

** If you've built Care Houses, the gravely-ill will prioritize them over going to Infirmaries for treatment. This can cause problems if you have ''too many'' Care Houses, as the sick will sometimes steadfastly refuse to be treated, pile up, and die, even if there are perfectly vacant slots in the actual medical facilities themselves. Having this happen near the climax of any given scenario can be hair-tearingly frustrating.
** Sometimes, citizens will refuse to eat rations because they're busy elsewhere, or in medical care. There's no way to give direct orders to individual people (save to remove them from employment if they're working), so the only option is to shut down or demolish the building they're staying at. This can get truly problematic in ''The Refugees'' where one objective is to feed all the people before time runs out. Having dozens of hungry people despite having a full food ration stockpile and fully-functioning Cookhouses is a very common occurrence.

** Mechanics-wise, either Extra Rations for the Ill or ''Overcrowding''. Extra Rations is ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin, providing food for the sick and allowing them to recover faster. At the same time, it costs precious food rations that everyone depends on having. Overcrowding works because you are not dealing with contagious diseases (except possibly common cold) but with frostbite and injuries. It generates discontent, but at the same time, it doubles the number of patients at a medical facility which, technically speaking, also doubles the speed your sick people are being treated AND it frees up more space for other buildings. It basically comes down to which you prefer in a game run.
** Taken even further with ''The Last Autumn'' DLC wherein you have to choose from two factions which are the engineers or the worker's unions. The advantage of the worker's unions is to keep your workers happy and to shut down strikes peacefully and cheaply (while later on if you decide to be a tyrant, you can force them to work in incredibly dangerous conditions and keep motivation up permanently with daily executions); but on the other side, we have the engineers, who by their very presence will make the workplace far safer and just a bit later make the work far more efficient (and if you're still having problems with striking then you can later basically enslave the workers, with enough supervision by armed engineers). Both undoubtedly help production at first for their own reasons but if you take them both too far, it will lead to cruel tyranny, which ironically both factions accuse each over of at the start.

* CataclysmBackstory: The Great Frost began in 1886 of the ''Frostpunk'' timeline, resulting in human civilization essentially collapsing and then having to rebuild. No-one's entirely sure what caused it, though it's confirmed that volcanic eruptions in the south played a role with [[spoiler:meteor impacts and a dimming Sun theorised to be contributing factors. Endless Mode further muddies the waters with reference to anthropogenic sulfur aerosols and an alleged DoomsdayDevice named "Saffron Cloud."]]

* ChooseAHandicap: In ''The Fall of Winterhome'' scenario, once you've fixed up the town and examine the generator that blew up and caused all the damage in the first place, your engineers tell you the generator is unfixable and won't last much longer until it completely shuts down, which kills your town's [[MoraleMechanic Hope]]. You have no choice but to set up a CitywideEvacuation, but you have two choices: tell the people you have no idea where you'll be going, which adds a permanent work efficiency penalty, or lie about another settlement you can go to and gain some Hope back. However, you'll later have to either [[HeKnowsTooMuch kill your engineers to uphold the lie]] or let the truth spill out and piss off the townspeople even more.

** Convicts that die working on the generator construction site do not get kept in morgues for repatriation to England. One of the laws, Rationalised Healthcare, notes that the bodies of convicts who die are disposed of in the foundations of the generator.
* CosmicHorrorStory: While a very unusual take on the genre, the series of discoveries showing [[spoiler: mankind's desperation to find the cause for the endless winter, which ultimately fails]], has surprisingly many characteristics of it. [[spoiler: There is no comprehensible intelligence or intent behind the disaster which has brought the Earth to its knees. It's nothing human science can explain, nor is it something that could make sense on a religious or mystical level. It does not seem to be mankind's punishment, and there's no special reason to it. It just happened, and there's nothing that anyone can do about it.]] The theme of mankind facing not merely destruction but the realization of its utter ''insignificance'' in the great scheme of things defines the Cosmic Horror elements of the story.

* CuttingOffTheBranches: ''On The Edge'' takes place after the events of ''A New Home'' and have it canon that the City did survive with a certain set of laws (which they force upon the settlements, and [[spoiler:which is your first warning that New London isn't very well run.]]). Considering that they have a population of about 550, the Captain apparently forced the survivors of the Frostlands to found the outposts for him instead, and likely did not get the GoldenEnding.

** You can choose to amputate a patient that begs you not to, rather than let him die from the infection. If you don't have a care house to take care of him, he kills himself because he doesn't want to be a burden to the limited resources.

* EverybodysDeadDave: The fate of [[spoiler:Winterhome, a nearby settlement with a heat generator. It means that the player's colonists are the only known humans left in the region, if not the world. In Winterhome, a riot broke out over food shortages and [[TyrantTakesTheHelm increasingly harsh rule by an Army captain]] before the generator exploded from lack of foresight. Many of them either perished from that explosion, the resulting chaos, or scattered across the region in camps. This news causes a major Hope decrease and the "Londoner" splinter movement in-game as a number of your citizens refuse to accept that London is gone and petition/plot to return to her.]] ''The Fall of Winterhome'' described its fate in detail, with [[spoiler:the city itself having suffered a massive upheaval that overthrew a tyrannical and incompetent Captain. The survivors then established order, cleaned up the deaths and damages, and began to inspect the generator. Eventually, a crisis occurs within the city when the engineers discovered that the generator was about to explode. They then decided to repair a nearby dreadnought to evacuate from the city, but the time and passenger capacity were too little. Thus, there were many inhabitants left behind. While the Dreadnought escaped with its fate and destination still unknown, the city of Winterhome fell into a desolate place with a destroyed generator by the time ''A New Home'' begins]].

** The intro for ''The Last Autumn'' mentions that it took five weeks for the team from Birmingham to reach site 107. In-game, the player's settlement is located nearby site 107, yet resources from London get delivered a day after the request.

* HistoricalDomainCharacter: The game, particularly ''A New Home'', had two characters: [[spoiler: [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla Tesla]] and [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fridtjof_Nansen Nansen]]]]. The former managing to [[spoiler: found a corporation that would build a city protected by an electric force-field against the ice ([[GoneHorriblyRight and also the inhabitants]])]] while the latter [[spoiler: not only scouted the Frostlands before the event of the game, but also survived to help refugees trapped in the Frostlands to reach the player's city]].

* HumanResources: The player can pass a law involving usage of corpses, many of which can demoralize the survivors. The Hot Springs settlement in ''On the Edge'' also practice composting dead bodies into the soil that they grow their crops over, which naturally disturbs many of your own people, and trying to dissuade them from doing so will lower their approval towards your faction.

* MockMeal: Sawdust can be used to create extra rations, but at the price of hope and health.

* NoahsStoryArc: One of the three scenarios in the game deal with preserving the seeds of various plants inside the titular Arks until the winter ends, [[FlingALightIntoTheFuture even if the original inhabitants do not live to see it]]. The major issues are that there are a total of 45 Engineers and an automaton, which make starting a functioning colony difficult, and the Arks must be prevented from frost, as it will damage the sensitive seeds. [[spoiler: The late game also forces the players to decide on whether to aid the unfortunate New Manchester in preparation for the coming storm or not, but it requires vast amounts of planning and resources to gain a GoldenEnding from fulfilling the needs of both the player's city and New Manchester.]]

* SoupOfPoverty: When food resources are stretched thin, they can be watered down but causes a bit of discontentment.

** One of the locations your scouts can find is a cairn with both people and supplies buried beneath it. Your scouts insist in their report that the supplies were not intended to be grave goods for the dead to use in the afterlife. If that were the case, then your scouts would be grave-robbers after all.

** In place of Hope in ''The Last Autumn'' is "Motivation". Every decision and law that raises motivation concerns raising the quality of life for the workers, from serving hearty meals that cost more raw food, to lowering the capacity of tents so that people have more personal space, at the cost of having to build more of them. You can also shorten the workday from 10 hours to 8, under the premise that well-rested people make less mistakes.

A sequel, ''VideoGame/Frostpunk2'', was announced in August 2021, set in the same universe 30 years after the first game, following a new technological breakthrough with the discovery of oil. No exact release date is currently set (although it's slated for release sometime in 2024), though a closed beta test occurred in April 2023.

** Lord Craven, Aristocratic leader and Prime Minister of the British Empire, looms large over the game as the man who oversaw British policy leading up to the Frost, in particular growing censorship and paramilitary crackdowns on strikes, hammering out small refuges with the generators in the North. [[spoiler: He takes center stage in ''The Refugees'', where it is revealed he planned to command a force of aristocrats on one of the evacuation transports, leaving the commoners to their deaths. While shown up by the workers seizing control of the transport and stranding him, he comes much later, albeit as a broken man taking shelter with children]]. While he ultimately proves to be much less repulsive than the dictator of Winterhome, pursuing relatively pragmatic policies such as the Generator building and avoiding international conflict, [[spoiler: he also gave full scope to any matter of abuses or brutality by the IEC and by extension the Captains of the Generators, and as he admits: "Mark my words: power corrupts. Great men are almost always bad men. I would know, I was both."]]

** ''The Last Autumn'' shows that [[spoiler:YOU, the PLAYER and Supervisor for Site 113 can be this to Winterhome and others. In particular, you can scam a competing French company out of valuable steam cores and even food as they starve, steal the supplies for Winterhome - thus likely helping to cause problems for them down the line - and oversee a brutal regime of oppression and totalitarian rule at the building sight, with the ability to rack up an absolutely unprecedented body count among the scenarios.]]

* AlmostDeadGuy: In ''A New Home'', if you don't go scouting Winterhome soon enough, a straggler from there collapses outside your shelter, telling you of its demise and leading to the Londoner movement.

* AlternateHistory: The introduction begins with an unexpected temperature drop in 1886, throwing entire civilizations into chaos. This accounts for the SteamPunk-style technology for the setting. While the generators were constructed to provide sanctuary, many of them were unfinished, with working examples inactive by the time survivors reached them.

** If you take the path of faith, citizens will insist on going to evening sermons even if they are gravely ill, often resulting in their deaths from going untreated.

** ''A New Home'': [[spoiler: Survive the storm without descending into totalitarianism. If you feel like [[EarnYourHappyEnding going above and beyond]], there is even an achievement for obtaining this (Golden Path), where you have to beat the scenario without causing any death via harsh laws, overwork, or exposure, all while having saved everybody possible and welcoming every wave of refugee into your city]]. That being said, there are certain factors that do not count towards or against a New Home golden ending, such as [[spoiler:banishing people from the city or letting the Londoners leave, or signing specific controversial laws but not actually enacting them enough times to result in repercussions (e.g. Emergency Shifts can result in death from overworking, but only if used for several consecutive days)]].

** Many players will not notice the ability to upgrade by building over old structures (houses, hunter lodges, and resource-gathering ones) rather than dismantling and building new ones. Granted, the material cost (excluding Steam Cores) when upgrading is actually higher compared to having the upgraded building built from scratch. At least dismantling the outdated and rebuilding the better version refunds you some materials.

*** For obtaining the "Golden Path" achievement in ''A New Home'', which is obtaining the best variation of the GoldenEnding, both Adaptation and Purpose laws signed actually count towards the achievement and there is no indicator if it is locked out by signing a harsh law or using a certain ability. Even signing the law alone as it is the prerequisite for other non-harsh laws will get it locked out, even if it was never used.

** The heat mechanic hits a maximum at Comfortable, or 2 and above points of warmth to a minimum of 0 degrees Celsius. Despite it being unlikely you'll achieve it on a normal playthrough, your people will never have any problem with you cranking the heat ''far'' above comfortable levels (Possible by speeding through the generator power techs alongside warm homes) even if the end result is dangerous for human life in its own way.[[note]]Through the use of a fully-powered max-Overdrive generator and heater, an Infirmary with both insulation techs can achieve an internal temperature positive of 130 degrees Celsius. A common temperature between storms in Endless mode is -60 degrees, still making the Infirmary over 70 degrees, hotter than the hottest deserts on Earth and heat stroke inevitable in real life.[[/note]]

* CuttingOffTheBranches: ''On The Edge'' takes place after the events of ''A New Home'' and have it canon that the City did survive with a certain set of laws (which they force upon the settlements, and [[spoiler:which is your first warning that New Home isn't very well run.]]). Considering that they have a population of about 550, the Captain apparently forced the survivors of the Frostlands to found the outposts for him instead, and likely did not get the GoldenEnding.

** Lord Craven, Aristocratic leader and Prime Minister of the British Empire, looms large over the game as the man who oversaw British policy leading up to the Frost, in particular growing censorship and paramilitary crackdowns on strikes, hammering out small refuges with the generators in the North. [[spoiler: He takes center stage in ''The Refugees'', where it is revealed he planned to command a force of aristocrats on one of the evacuation transports, leaving the commoners to their deaths. While shown up by the workers seizing control of the transport and stranding him, he comes much later, albeit as a broken man taking shelter with children]]. While he ultimately proves to be much less repulsive than the dictator of Winterhome, pursuing relatively pragmatic policies such as the Generator building and avoiding international conflict, [[spoiler: he also gave full scope to any matter of abuses or brutality by the IEC and by extension the Captains of the Generators, and as he admits: "ark my words: power corrupts. Great men are almost always bad men. I would know, I was both."]]
** New London [[spoiler: and arguably You or your successor in ''A New Home'']] cause no shortage of problems to the outposts in ''On the Edge'', with increasingly arbitrary and capricious demands.
** ''The Last Autumn'' shows that [[spoiler: YOU, the PLAYER and Supervisor for Site 113 can be this Winterhome and others. In particular you can scam a competing French company out of valuable steam cores and even food as they starve, steal the supplies for Winterhome - thus likely helping to cause problems for them down the line - and oversee a brutal regime of oppression and totalitarian rule at the building sight, with the ability to rack up an absolutely unprecedented body count among the scenarios.]]

** Many players will not notice the ability to upgrade by building over old structures (houses, hunter lodges, and resource-gathering ones) rather than dismantling and building new ones.

** A major issue of the Order and Faith paths, [[spoiler: especially for ''A New Home'' and ''The Refugees'']], is that there are no indications for the player to know whether they have [[spoiler: "Crossed the Line" for the GoldenEnding]].

** The Healing House, [[spoiler: an unlockable structure from the Faith and Spiritual Strength path]], is good for providing hope but, being manned by clergy with little medical experience, may not actually help with the general health of the patients. [[note]]It heals patients more slowly than a proper Infirmary, but does not require a steam core or Engineers in order to function.[[/note]]

* TooFastToStop: In endless mode, one landmark in the Frostland is the 'ice boat', a boat fitted with skates that could very easily build up speed across the ice flats on the frozen seas... and no brakes. Your scouts find it in pieces, presumably lodged in something it couldn't steer away from.

* UnblockableAttack: No matter your insulation and generator heat level, the last night's -150 C temperature will send everything down to freezing. Thankfully, the game ends right after 6 in-game hours.

* VideogameCaringPotential:

!!''Frostpunk'' contains examples of these tropes:

** [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla Tesla]] heads up his own American expedition not that far from your site in ''A New Home.'' Unfortunately, his behavior is very far from keeping in the HistoricalHeroUpgrade he often gets in fiction. [[spoiler: He ruthlessly expended the lives of expedition members, leaving the wounded to die as he trudged along to create Tesla City, only to rule as a tyrant practicing his Eugenicist and Social Darwinist views to the full, exiling the sick and wounded before setting up a DeathRay in the city. Ultimately his workers grew so tired of his abuse and killed him before evacuating the city, but his legacy may well linger on and kill yet more people, whether it be the survivors in the exiled areas or your scouts coming close to the laser in Tesla City.]]

** Lord Craven, Aristocratic leader and Prime Minister of the British Empire, looms large over the game as the man who oversaw British policy leading up to the Frost, in particular growing censorship and paramilitary crackdowns on strikes, hammering out small refuges with the generators in the North. [[spoiler: He takes center stage in ''The Refugees'' where it is revealed he planned to command a force of aristocrats on one of the evacuation transports, leaving the commoners to their deaths. While shown up by the workers seizing control of the transport and stranding him, he comes much later, albeit as a broken man taking shelter with children.]] While he ultimately proves to be much less repulsive than the dictator of Winterhome, pursuing relatively pragmatic policies such as the Generator building and avoiding international conflict, [[spoiler: he also gave full scope to any matter of abuses or brutality by the IEC and by extension the Captains of the Generators, and as he admits: "ark my words: power corrupts. Great men are almost always bad men. I would know, I was both." [[/spoiler]]

** ''The Last Autumn'' shows that [[spoiler: YOU, the PLAYER and Supervisor for Site 113]] can be this to [[spoiler: Winterhome and others. In particular you can scam a competing French company out of valuable steam cores and even food as they starve, steal the supplies for Winterhome - thus likely helping to cause problems for them down the line - and oversee a brutal regime of oppression and totalitarian rule at the building sight, with the ability to rack up an absolutely unprecedented body count among the scenarios.]]

* NintendoHard: Frostpunk is brutally difficult, mainly due to story events that a first-time player won't know about, and thus cannot prepare for. It's very easy to make early mistakes in the first few hours of gameplay that will doom your colony to failure several hours later, without the player even realizing they made them. Prioritizing the wrong research and accidentally triggering plot events too early can be especially devastating.

** In the game's canon, [[spoiler:The Winterhome Captain is so ridiculously incompetent that he irreparably damaged his own generator and it's a wonder that he wasn't overthrown sooner by his own people.]]

* UnblockableAttack: No matter your insulation and generator heat level, the last night's -150 C temperature will send everything down to freezing. Thankfully, the game ends right after.

* UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom: Potentially, the project overseer in ''The Last Autumn''.
** Having your foraging party looting the Lost Crates point of interest will award some minor but valuable resources...that were meant for Winterhome's generator, implying that had they received this shipment of parts as intended, things could have turned out much differently. Oops. The name of the achievement you gained from doing so basically spells it out in no uncertain terms.

** That being said, given the multitude of problems that plagued that city to begin with, it's unclear how much worse looting the crates made for them. Furthermore, you can return these resources to a cargo convoy encountered later on, but given that Winterhome [[ForegoneConclusion canonically perished anyway]] even ''with'' the parts, it wouldn't matter much in the long run if you'd just lie and keep them for yourself.

* YouHaveResearchedBreathing: JustifiedTrope, the player's colony is one of many expeditions that made it to the generators, with few resources to start from the ground up. The Book of Laws are mainly various mandates for the community. Less justifiable is the New Liverpool Generator in ''The Last Autumn''. Why you must research the technologies needed to actually build the Generator instead of having them available to build when you arrive at the worksite is never explained. Likewise, the ''On the Edge'' scenario takes place after ''A New Home'', yet the player is still forced to research the same technology all over again.