Frostpunk 2: All choices in the campaign Frostpunk 2 guide, tips

Every now and then, the story campaign in Frostpunk 2 will put you before a difficult decision that will test your conscience. On this page of the guide you will find a list of important choices and their consequences.

Last update: 25 September 2024

The story campaign of Frostpunk 2 leads you through several chapters, in which you will lead post-apocalyptic settlements fighting against the eternal frost. From time to time, the game will present you with certain predefined events in which you will have to make a difficult moral decision on which the future of your city may potentially depend. On this page of the guide you will find a list of all important decisions along with the consequences of each choice.

• Kill seals or send back elderly people?
• Desecrate graves or not?
• Defeat or accept the frost?
• Give the nomads oil or not?
• Salvage or settle Winterhome?
• Banishment, reconciliation or order?

Kill seals or send back elderly people?

In the prologue titled The Wanderers, you will lead a small community centered around a destroyed vehicle. In the second half of the mission, the game will present you with a choice that could potentially help you gather enough food before the incoming whiteout. The available choices are:

1. Extermination of the last herd of seals living in the area - hunting the animals will immediately increase your influx of food, which will certainly make it easier for you to gather the 40,000 units needed to survive the whiteout. This decision has no immediate consequences beyond the narrative awareness of wiping out the last group of wild seals.
2. Sending 500 elders to death - an alternative to killing the seals is to send back a group of 500 elders who have voluntarily decided to sacrifice themselves for the common good. This decision will immediately reduce the population of your settlement by 500 people, but the available workforce will not suffer - people unable to work will leave the city. However, what is more important, the main goal of the mission will be reduced. Now only 25,000 units of food are needed for your settlement to survive the hard times.
3. Do not take any drastic actions - the seals and old men will survive, but in return you will not receive any facilitators during the mission. If you manage to survive and complete the scenario, you will be rewarded with a special achievement.

In our opinion, the most "practical" decision is to send the elderly out of the city. At this stage of the game, you should already have well-developed plantations producing food, and reducing the necessary supplies will significantly facilitate the completion of the task.

Depending on your decisions, the epilogue at the end of each mission will reflect the decisions you made in the story.

Desecrate graves or not?

In the first chapter of the game, after founding a colony in the old dreadnought, you will find oil deposits. In one of them, however, lie the buried remains of nomads who once inhabited this place. So you must decide what to do with this particular deposit. The available choices are:

1. Disposing of the bodies and using the deposit - you will have three deposits at your disposal instead of two, which will increase the amount of oil extracted in the old dreadnought. Using this deposit, however, will cause diseases among the city's inhabitants, forcing you to build hospitals. In the second chapter, when the nomads return, they will also be angry and demand more oil than usual.
2. Not touching the deposit - you will only have two deposits at your disposal, which will reduce the amount of oil extracted. You won't have to worry about diseases though, and the nomads will appreciate your gesture in chapter two by asking for less oil.

In our opinion, the choice is difficult - exploiting the third deposit can significantly help you gather oil before the whiteout. On the other hand, once the nomads are gone, you'll be free to build an extraction district on their burial site without their knowledge, which will prove very useful if your oil supplies start to run low. It is up to you whether you prefer to be better prepared for a whiteout or to protect your people for what happens after it.

Defeat or accept the frost?

The beginning of the second chapter immediately presents you with a difficult choice with serious consequences - regarding a potential upgrade for the generator. Both factions have a different vision - the Adaptation faction wants to embrace the frost, while the Progress faction wants to defeat the frost. The generator upgrade is permanent, so you can't reverse your decision. The available choices are:

1. Defeat the frost - you will receive a generator upgrade project that will significantly increase the efficiency of the generator, but will only be able to use oil. The Progress faction will be satisfied, while the fervour of the Adaptation faction will increase. You will also unlock a building that will allow you to use the infinite resource deposits in the city.
2. Embrace the frost - you will receive a generator upgrade project that will allow it to accept all types of fuel - coal, oil, and steam. The Adaptation faction will be satisfied, while the fervour of the Progress faction will increase. You will also unlock upgraded outposts, which can infinitely utilize resource deposits outside the city area.

Both decisions are ultimately quite balanced - the choice depends on your play style. Embracing the frost will mean a greater focus on frostland exploration, while defeating the frost will mean greater focus on developing your main city. If you are unable to decide, choose the option that will not upset the faction whose worldview fits yours more - it is impossible to avoid conflict with one of the factions here.

Give the nomads oil or not?

While preparing for the whiteout in the second chapter, you will have one contact with the nomads who once lived near the old dreadnought. They need oil to survive the coming whiteout - and you need it, too. If you have not desecrated the nomads' graves, they will demand 24,000 units of oil. If you have desecrated them, they will demand 30,000. The available choices are:

1. Give the nomads oil - you must have the required amount of oil stored in the old dreadnought when the time runs out or send it to them from New London (you can find the nomads in the frostlands). The nomads will take the oil and leave, being able to survive the whiteout.
2. Send guards to the nomads - you must have the required amount of guards and send them to the nomads or have them on standby in the colony when the time runs out. The guards will disperse the nomads - you will not lose any oil, but you will condemn the nomads to certain death.
3. Ignore the nomads - desperate, the nomads will attack the old dreadnought, killing many people and temporarily stopping oil production. This will happen just before the whiteout, so the consequences could be catastrophic.

From a pragmatic point of view, the best option is to send guards after the nomads - but you will have them on your conscience. Ignoring them is not an option - you need a functioning colony more than ever. You can also give them oil, but this means that the whiteout will be much more destructive for you.

Salvage or settle Winterhome?

At the beginning of the fourth chapter after finding Winterhome, you will have to make a decision that will change the course of the entire chapter - you have to decide what to do with the ruins of the city. Regardless of your decision, you will infuriate one of the factions and permanently dedicate yourself to Progress or Adaptation. The available choices are:

1. Salvage Winterhome - the path of Progress. The colonists will destroy the ruins of Winterhome to reach the cores hidden beneath its surface and do some serious upgrades to the New London's generator. You will oppose the faction that believes in Adaptation, but you will gain a lot of cores that you can spend on both generator upgrades and advanced buildings.
2. Settle Winterhome - the Adaptation path. The colonists will bury the cores and rebuild Winterhome as a place to settle, finding a new fuel source in the process: steam. Eventually you will oppose the faction that believes in Progress, but your economy will no longer be dependent on a single city and you will gain a new source of energy.

Your choice changes the course of the entire chapter, but the making the choice is simpler than you might expect - follow the path supported by the faction you allied with in chapter 2 when you upgraded the generator. Otherwise, you will not be able to make good use of what Winterhome gives you - the steam gained in the Adaptation path will be worthless for New London if the generator only runs on oil, and the lack of cores from the ruins would not allow you to create more advanced buildings if you chose the Progress path.

Banishment, reconciliation or order?

At the beginning of the fifth chapter, you will have to make the last significant decision in the game. There will be a murder in the city council, and civil war will break out in New London. You must end the conflict - by banishing the opposing faction to a colony outside the city, convincing the factions to sign a peace agreement, or becoming a dictator and suppressing the war by force. The available paths are:

1. Path of Banishment - your goal will be to establish a colony in the Windward Moor outside the city and move all members of the opposing faction who do not abandon their membership to it. You will need many resources to create a self-sufficient colony - if you succeed, most factions will leave amicably. You can also force them to leave with the help of guards before the colony is completed, thereby condemning them to death.
2. Path of Reconciliation - your goal will be to get rid of all radical laws and buildings, meet the demands of both factions, and sign peace accords that require high relations with all factions. You will need to finish the fights quickly and then focus on increasing your relationships to get the required 67 votes.
3. Path of Order - your goal will be to become a captain by implementing the final law on the Rule tree or to stage a coup d'état with the help of a huge army of guards. Once you have gained absolute power, you will need to build enclaves to isolate the warring factions from each other.

The game itself will recommend the most optimal path for you - it depends on how you treated individual groups during the game. If you were completely aligned with one faction and ignored the other, the exile path would be your best choice, as the ignored faction will have less influence and members. If you have tried to maintain a balance between the views of the factions, the Path of Reconciliation will be your best choice - you should be able to increase relations with all the factions. If you have invested in the Rule category laws, the Path of Order will be the easiest - you will be very close to becoming a captain.