Frostpunk 2 – Should you defeat or embrace the frost in Chapter 2?

In Frostpunk 2, at the start of Chapter Two (Ambition), you’re presented with a choice regarding the City’s future. You can either click “We Will Defeat The Frost” or “We Will Embrace the Frost”—and this choice greatly affects how the rest of the campaign plays out.

Difficult choices are woven into the fabric of Frostpunk 2. Your strategy and chances of success or failure are shaped by your choices at every step of the way. But a few of these decisions carry a lot more weight than the rest, and your choice between defeating and embracing the frost is the first of these big decisions.

It affects how Chapter Two plays out and has consequences for the rest of the story campaign. It’s not a decision to be taken lightly.

Should you defeat the frost or embrace the frost in Chapter 2 – Ambition?

There’s no concrete right or wrong answer here because neither choice is better than the other. In fact, I’d say you should make one choice on your first Frostpunk 2 playthrough and then make the other choice on your second playthrough. This choice is impactful enough that you’ll have a quite different gameplay experience on each playthrough.

Personally, I went with embracing the frost because I was more persuaded by the Pilgrims’ argument that the frost is here to stay and that we should learn to live with it. You can “roleplay” the decision as I did, or you can base this decision on your playstyle. If you enjoy exploring the Frostland and discovering all the goodies hidden out there in the ice, then embrace the frost. But if you prefer to focus more on city management, you’ll probably find that defeating the frost is better suited to your style.

What happens if you embrace the frost in Frostpunk 2?

If you embrace the frost, then you’ll be able to upgrade your generator so it can use any kind of fuel: coal, oil, or steam. You’ll also be able to find Frostland settlements with unlimited resource output. The downside is you won’t be able to melt the deep resource deposits surrounding New London and your colonies. You’ll also gain the Pilgrims’ approval and annoy the Stalwarts, but not by a huge amount in either case.

What happens if you defeat the frost in Frostpunk 2?

Defeating the frost allows you to upgrade your generator so it uses oil much more efficiently, but it won’t be able to run on coal or steam at all. You can convert coal to oil using Coal Liquefactors, but this is an expensive, time-consuming extra step on the path to getting the heat you need. You can also access the deep resource deposits surrounding New London and your colonies, but Frostland settlements with unlimited output will be off-limits.