Frostpunk 2 is a city-building sequel set 30 years after the first game

Frostpunk 2 has officially been revealed, and it's set 30 years after the apocalyptic blizzard that sets up the events of the first game. What civilizations remain are still reeling from the great global cooling, but there's a new resource at the center of your efforts to save humanity from extinction.

*Minor story spoilers for the first Frostpunk follow*

As teased a few months ago, before we knew there would even be a Frostpunk 2, 11 bit studios' sequel takes place after the demise of coal as a feasible fuel and heat source. Now, oil is all the rage, and at this point we can't even fathom the sort of awful decisions and sacrifices you'll need to make in pursuit of the emerging fossil fuel. "Once lead into temptation, we could not be delivered from evil. We did what we had to do," reads Frostpunk 2's brief but foreboding synopsis.

Frostpunk 2's debut trailer is a continuation of the aforementioned teaser from June, pulling back the shot and revealing some huge oil-drilling machinery and the inside of a frosty, abandoned shack. At the end of the trailer, the camera pans around the sole unfortunate human subject of the trailer, revealing more about his grizzly fate. Knelt before a tipped-over and leaking oil barrel, the word "liar" is scrawled across his chest in blood.

If you've played all the DLC, you'll remember the end of the On The Edge DLC fades out by teasing the year 1916, which is presumably the setting for Frostpunk 2. Given that timing and the prominence of oil in the marketing materials, all things now point to the sequel abandoning the Frostpunk aesthetic of the first game for a Dieselpunk style, perhaps akin to the Iron Harvest franchise.

Frostpunk 2 doesn't have a release date yet, but right now it's due to release on PC via Steam, Epic Games, and GOG.

Until that time, check out the best city-building games available now.