Highlights

  • Frostpunk 2 & Manor Lords are both city-builders, but focus on different aspects: survival vs. combat and politics.
  • Manor Lords allows players to build cities and conquer lands, while Frostpunk 2 prioritizes survival and politics.
  • Frostpunk 2 features a strict survival system with cold protection, while Manor Lords focuses less on survival mechanics.

Frostpunk 2 is one of 2024's most anticipated titles and continues to show the increasing popularity of survival games. Frostpunk 2 is a city-building survival game developed and published by 11 Bit Studios that sees players taking on a management role for a city amid a volcanic winter and ensuring the city thrives and its people survive. Ahead of Frostpunk 2's release, another city-building game has burst onto the scene, Manor Lords, which functions similarly in some ways to Frostpunk 2 and differently in others.

Manor Lords is a medieval city-building game by Slavic Magic and Hooded Horse currently in early access. Despite being an indie title in early access, Manor Lords has amassed a significant following and continues to garner positive reception from the large majority of players. Those currently enjoying Manor Lords may need to keep an eye on Frostpunk 2 ahead of its July 25 release date, as the two games actually have more in common than it may initially seem, in spite of their starkly different settings. At the same time, Frostpunk 2 and Manor Lords have very different emphases, making them both fairly distinct from one another.

frostpunk 2
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Frostpunk 2 and Manor Lords Are City-Builders With Different Goals

How Frostpunk 2 and Manor Lords Compare in Their Approach to City-Building and Survival

Frostpunk 2 and Manor Lords may both be city-builders, but that doesn't mean they approach it in the same way. In Manor Lords, players can essentially build their city from the ground up and place buildings wherever they wish. Frostpunk 2, on the other hand, gives players the city of New London to start with, a circular city in the middle of a snowy wasteland from which they can build entire city districts, all branching out from the inner circle.

Frostpunk 2 is also a bit more strict when it comes to its survival mechanics, being that it is technically a survival game. A core focus of Frostpunk 2 is ensuring the citizens of New London not only have enough food, fuel, and shelter to survive, but also are protected from the cold at all costs. Manor Lords approaches survival somewhat similarly, only perhaps less strictly. In Manor Lords, players are still required to ensure their people have enough food and fuel to survive, but they don't have the harsh cold of a volcanic winter to deal with.

How Frostpunk 2 and Manor Lords Compare in Their Approach to Politics

Both Frostpunk 2 and Manor Lords emphasize politics but in different ways. It could be argued that there is less of an emphasis on politics in Manor Lords than there is in Frostpunk 2, but the emphasis is there in both of them nonetheless. In Manor Lords, players are tasked with conquering enemy lands via combat similar to most RTS games, and are even given an overarching antagonist, the Baron, to conquer. Alongside building up their city, players will spend their time in Manor Lords taking over the map using the armies they assemble.

Unlike Manor Lords, Frostpunk 2's politics do not involve combat. Instead, Frostpunk 2's politics are driven by its unique Council system, which allows players to form and pass laws, so long as the factions in the Council approve of them. There are three factions at the beginning of a Frostpunk 2 game and more may even form later as players progress. This is ultimately the heartbeat of Frostpunk 2: making strategic decisions that will ultimately benefit New London.

Frostpunk 2 and Manor Lords may be similar in the most fundamental ways, but their emphases are drastically different from one another. Manor Lords emphasizes city-building and combat, whereas Frostpunk 2 emphasizes survival and politics. Even so, Manor Lords should consider giving Frostpunk 2 a go once it releases in July.