You want the good news? Frostpunk 2 officially arrives later this week on Friday, September 20th, and it's getting some really fantastic reviews so far. The bad news is that we'll have to wait until 2025 to play it on Xbox Series X and S.
Yes, this new "society survival game" is heading to PC Game Pass on day one, and for now it's sitting on an impressive Metacritic average of 85. The console version looked set to arrive later this year, but that's sadly not the case:
Let's not dwell on the Xbox side of things though - here are some of those excellent PC reviews:
God Is A Geek (9/10)
"Frostpunk 2 requires your patience and ability to make tough decisions, but rewards you for sticking with it and respecting its systems."
Windows Central (4.5/5)
"Frostpunk 2 pushes the boundaries on what a city-building game and a survival experience can be, telling stories of human hope and despair in tandem. With beautiful visuals and a radically increased gameplay scope over its predecessor, only a handful of issues mar the ice."
PC Gamer (85/100)
"As a city builder, Frostpunk 2 is a bit of a step down from the original due to the increase in scale, which unfortunately keeps the city at arm's length. As a society sim, however, it's every bit as engrossing as the first Frostpunk."
IGN (8/10)
"This is a city-building sequel that might have lost some of the intimacy of the original by thinking bigger, but what it’s gained through its ambitious philosophy of reinvention rather than iteration means you can play it immediately after the original and not feel like you’ve done most of this before."
GameSpot (8/10)
"Frostpunk 2 doesn't replace the first game. Instead, it elevates its rawest themes of human nature to towering heights. It offers a significantly different challenge in its city-building that allows both games to exist in separate sectors of the genre, and it's better for it."
It sounds like the team at 11 Bit Studios are getting set to reveal more details about Frostpunk 2's Xbox release in the near future, so we'll let you know if anything major (like a release date) is revealed when that happens.
And if you're wondering, Frostpunk 2 is definitely coming to Xbox Game Pass in 2025, so you'll be able to play it at no extra charge with a Game Pass Ultimate membership. For now though, as mentioned, it's limited to just PC.