Screenshots & trailers
What players say
Why the number is what it is: aspect mentions counted across 299 sampled Steam reviews (273 positive / 26 negative), recent and most-helpful. Plain keyword counting, fully reproducible; nothing here is written by a machine.
What positive reviews talk about
- Story & writing9% mention it
- World & exploration8% mention it
- Music & audio7% mention it
- Visuals & art6% mention it
What negative reviews complain about
- Bugs & crashes15% mention it
- Story & writing12% mention it
- Content & length12% mention it
- Controls & UI12% mention it
- Performance12% mention it
Satisfaction by hours played
Same score, different games: see how sentiment holds up the longer people play.
Under 5h
74%
42 reviews
5-15h
92%
88 reviews
15-40h
96%
89 reviews
40-100h
95%
57 reviews
100h+
96%
23 reviews
Review sentiment over time
Weekly positive-review rate (green) and review volume (bars). Dashed lines mark significant patches; the amber line is the start of the current scoring window. Hover the dots to see what drove a dip or a jump.
How this score was computed
The VGC Score is a weighted blend on a press-comparable 0-100 quality scale. Steam approval rates are first calibrated (95% positive on Steam ≈ 89.5 quality, since Steam approval skews high). Press and tracked creator reviews each count ~2x a player review and share one cap against player evidence (creator buy/skip calls pool into an approval rate, calibrated like Steam approval); all-time sentiment is capped and halved (it's context, not verdict); reviews of the current build carry the most weight when a fresh patch anchors the window; and a 'typical game' prior keeps small samples from pegging the scale. Because press reviews and Metacritic user aggregates describe the launch build, their weight decays as the game ages (3-year half-life after a 1-year grace). That's how a game that launched rough can outgrow its old reception once updates win players over. Reviews under 2h playtime (the refund window), non-Steam activations, and free copies are downweighted.
| Component | Positive | Quality (0-100) | Weight (pseudo-reviews) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Press reviews (OpenCritic) | – | 85 | 37 |
| All-time Steam reviews | 93% | 87 | 1137 |
| Metacritic user ratings | – | 87 | 137 |
| Post-patch Steam reviews (trust-weighted) | 94% | 89 | 196 |
| Calibration prior (typical game) | – | 72 | 50 |
Scoring window: last 30 days (no significant patch detected) · 300 reviews sampled · 561 total reviews in window · weighted 230.7 up / 14.2 down · computed 3h ago · full methodology →
Press & Creators reviews (124)
Individual verdicts from outlets we track: scored reviews first, most trusted outlets first among them. The small badge is each outlet's trust score: how well its scoring history aligns with players.
- 90
“Frostpunk is not as complex city builder as it could be, but an engaging one for sure. What is more important, it will challenge your moral principles like no other game before.”
read full review ↗ - 70
“It pushes back hard against the sort of easy dominance over people so common to city-building games.”
read full review ↗ - 85
“Minor hiccups aside, Frostpunk is a great city-building strategy game. The difficulty is set just right, you can always scrape by, but at the same time, you’re already forced to start tackling the next crisis looming on the horizon. Only players who like to play cautiously or have empathy for their workers should steer clear. The game is primarily let down by its underutilized alternate history premise, which could have yielded so much more. Beyond that, certain decisions regarding the DLC offerings also smack a bit of cash-grabbing.”
read full review ↗ - 90
“Frostpunk feeds from our most primal fears to provide a challenging and haunting experience on what it means to survive and the consequences of such act.”
read full review ↗ - 85
“Frostpunk shakes up the often cheery or stale genre of City Building games with a dystopian background, survival elements, and involved decision making. With the right fixes of the game’s technical faults and (much) more content, Frostpunk could be a new staple for city builders looking for something different.”
read full review ↗ - 85
“Give Frostpunk a chance, you’ll soon find out that this is yet another ambitious project from 11 bit studios that is greater than the sum of its parts. This very atmospheric "survival strategy" deserves a success and the developers should know that they are on the right path of achieving it.”
read full review ↗ - 80
“Frostpunk: Console Edition is a brutal game where every choice comes at a price.”
read full review ↗ - 90
“Frostpunk is quite simply one of the best city-building experiences on the PlayStation 4 with a highly detailed narrative written for four huge campaigns. The sadness in there only being four campaigns is a true testament to the team at 11 Bit Studios, as they have crafted such a memorable experience, with gut-wrenching decisions at every turn. The savagery of the game can have long-lasting effects that can carry into the subsequent play-throughs, as the memories of what arose from making previous decisions can sway future decisions down other pathways. For those who wish to experience a more laid-back 'Sim City' like experience, then this title may not be the right title to jump into. However after experiencing this, it will be easy to feel anxious to see whatever the team behind it has in store next.”
read full review ↗ - 90
“What separates Frostpunk from other city builders like it is the tension between ethics and expediency, morality and morale. Your decisions will cost you either your humanity or your principles.”
read full review ↗ - 80
“Frost Punk will test your city management skills to the max and keep you coming back for more.”
read full review ↗ - 80
“At its best, Frostpunk provides a tense, nail-biting experience like few others in the genre. It's not about building an empire, or creating a beautiful cityscape, but simply doing what you need to do to guide your people through what at first seems like insurmountable adversity. There's a few niggling issues, but the feeling you get from surviving the campaign is one of utter, unbridled joy, and it's that feeling more than any other why we have absolutely no qualms about recommending Frostpunk to you.”
read full review ↗ - 84
“Frostpunk is a very unique and atmospheric survival experience that manages to make us reflect on aspects of our very selves and the society we live in, even though this is not quite achieved with the variety we would expect from a City-Builder game or the deep personal connection that This War of Mine managed to forge.”
read full review ↗
3DNews
Slant Magazine
Gaming Professors
Hu3br
PLAY Zine
GRYOnline.pl
VGChartz
Cubed3
Too Much Gaming
PC Invasion
Push Square…and 112 more tracked reviews.
Patch history
- Achievements & Localization Quality HotfixOct 20, 2025
- Frostpunk Newsfeed UpdateOct 9, 2023
- Patch 1.6.2 out now!Oct 11, 2022
- Building update hotfix!Aug 3, 2022
- Frostpunk DLCs on Console: 21.07.2021Jul 7, 2021
- Frostpunk | Tech Update [25/11/2020]Nov 25, 2020
- Frostpunk | Tech Update [11.04.2020]Nov 4, 2020significant · resets scoring window
- Frostpunk: The Board Game | Progress UpdateOct 22, 2020
- Frostpunk | Hotfix [26/08/2020]Aug 26, 2020
- Frostpunk - Update 1.5.1Feb 20, 2020
- Frostpunk | Update 1.4.1Nov 6, 2019
- Patch update with hotfixes!Aug 30, 2019
- Frostpunk | Mac Version NewsFeb 13, 2019
- Update 1.3.3 | HOTFIXESFeb 8, 2019significant · resets scoring window
- Frostpunk Update 1.3.3 | Photo Mode, Mac version, Randomized weather and new languages!Feb 6, 2019significant · resets scoring window
- Frostpunk | A Christmas Carol - Free Update 1.3.2Dec 18, 2018significant · resets scoring window
- Update 1.3.1 | FixesDec 5, 2018significant · resets scoring window
- The biggest Frostpunk DLC so far: ENDLESS MODE - AVAILABLE NOW for free!Nov 19, 2018significant · resets scoring window