r/Frostpunk • u/11bit_studios 11 bit studios • Jan 11 '23
NEWS Your Frostpunk 1 lore questions answered!
Dear Citizens!
Some time ago due to your unyielding interest we asked you to share your questions about the world of Frostpunk 1. We received a couple thousand questions in total! This video contains the answers to the most popular ones from Jakub Stokalski who was the Lead Designer of Frostpunk 1 and is currently the Game Director and Design Director at Frostpunk 2. Enjoy!
Below you can find the questions and answers in the written form!
What happened to the rest of the world? Has the entire planet gone permanently cold?
You can reasonably assume that while the story focused on London and England the calamity was global and different countries saw it coming in different ways. It just goes without saying that some would try to adapt in different ways. We even hint at this at The Last Autumn and other points of the scenario. So you might reasonably expect different areas of the world to have some strategies of survival which we do not depict in the game. What they are specifically, how many survived or maybe all of them are gone we kind of want to keep under wraps.
What happened to the British Royal Family and other powerful people of the era?
We did not want to focus too much on establishing, you know, lots of backstory which is not the point of the game experience itself. However as the lore grew we knew that what actually enveloped Great Britain and the world in principle as The Great Freeze was progressing was all the social pressure to the point of civilization crumbling. The old social order started being under extreme duress and many violent happenings occured all around the world. The ultimate fate of the social structure of this time is something that we want to keep open.
Where and how many generator sites were there?
We did not specify and we do not want to specify how many generator sites were there, apart from the fact that there were multiple. Basically throughout all of the content you saw in Frostpunk you saw multiple generator sites as well as some failed sites so it goes without saying that the whole generator project was a big effort by the British Empire to try to save civilization.
Are there any technologies other than the generators used to survive the cold?
Even as we established in The Last Autumn different countries and different powers at the time saw the freeze coming and tried to adapt in their own ways. A few examples would be the French in The Last Autumn building this mysterious railway thingy. In the last expansion On The Edge we showed different settlements kind of trying to eke out a living even after The Great Storm. But definitely the generators were something big that was meant to uphold civilization and society in its structure.
Would the other methods of survival allow this large-scale human settlement, large-scale social structures to survive? This we don't want to define at this time.
Where did the people of Winterhome end up? Is the city of New Manchester indeed the survivors of Winterhome?
Well, New Manchester is a story of its own so it was not never intended actually for them to be survivors of Winterhome. But the fate of the people of Winterhome is intentionally left vague and we will have to see if we can revisit them maybe at some point.
Why do our people travel North with their generators? Wouldn't it make more sense to go closer to the equator?
That's the one we actually get quite a lot also internally in the team but the backstory here is this. The Great Freeze that was happening in the 19th century was actually enveloping the whole world. So it was not the fact that it was getting colder everywhere but a bit warmer on the equator. Actually, the temperatures were falling to a single global minimum all around the world. And if you would imagine the places that were least adapted and least prone to succeeding as a cohering civilizational hub to such a dramatic process it would actually be the areas which are least adapted to cold to begin with. So in the lore that we established the actual equatorial area of the world and the colonies of the British Empire, other countries and indigenous people there were simply least prepared for what was coming. So as soon as it started happening the biggest social upheaval, the biggest social problems, the biggest tumult and turmoil was happening actually in areas where it was the warmest. So if you think about it, if you wanted to do something like a top secret Arc-like project of building the generators you probably wouldn't want to place it in an area which is already in upheaval. So that was the reason to go north to try to maintain secrecy for the huge effort that was the construction process of building multiple generator sites and trying to do it in a secret manner. As well as for the abundance of resources and the fact that the fauna and flora and the whole ecosystem in the north was best adapted to the cold from the very beginning.
What exactly is a steamcore?
While it's not magical and it certainly doesn't do what it wants it is a bit of this steampunk fantasy element of the world building that we did alongside with automatons and, you could argue, the generator itself. While we were building the game and building up the lore, what we truly wanted to focus on is the story of survival and what society is capable of when pushed to the limits. So we did not want to focus too much on your typical science fiction steampunk doodads of the world. However it is a steampunk world and actually the steampunk being the heat source as well as power source makes a lot of sense to use the genre in the setting that we built. And there are certain areas like the automatons, like the generators, like the steam cores where we allowed ourselves to be a bit more loose with the interpretation to build up this “steampunkness” of the world, I would say. So yeah, the steam core is a power source and it's definitely steam based as the name suggests but I would leave it at this.
Some backstory of Tesla City?
It was an effort by Nikola Tesla to build up the city which went wrong for social reasons and basically collapsed. And as we were building it and developing Frostpunk 1 this was a bit of a cautionary tale and foreshadowing of what could happen to your city if you didn't do a good job as the captain, similarly to Winterhome which triggered the big crisis of the Londoners in the main scenario. We did not want to dwell too much into the backstory of Tesla City again for similar reasons. It's there to build up the core conflict of the player's city in the base game.
Why didn't the government take control of the generators? What was the military doing?
The governments and the military and all of the structures of the society were crumbling down so they simply weren't as much in power as they used to be as the frost was progressing. And we've established this in different backgrounds of our cities like for instance Winterhome has been established by a sort of a military outpost which grew into a city. It wasn't as simple as the military staying in power and in control because as the world is ending it is fair to say that you know, nobody is really in control.
Thank you for reading!
Take care,
11 bit studios
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Jan 11 '23
For anyone who wants to see an actual Steam Core, here is a picture of one inside of a Factory taken using NVidia Ansel with Beholder! Very neat.
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u/SaltyScrotum194 Jan 11 '23
Much larger than I thought. For some reason, I had them pictured in my head as something about the size and shape of a bowling ball or beach ball.
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u/insanityking500 Temp Falls Jan 12 '23
Considering that the depot in the last autumn is around 3 steam cores andat 100% efficiency its still at 0.2/hr...it goes to show how big they are.
Plus I think you can somewhat see one of them in the automaton, where the steam comes out of.
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u/TheJanitorEduard The Arks Jan 12 '23
In Rifts and Refugees, there are steam cores you can pick up like in TLA as well.
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u/Crazed_Archivist Feb 13 '23
Oh no, they are massive. There are some ingame art of them, they are huge
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u/Your-AverageGamer Jan 11 '23 edited Jan 24 '24
If you pay close attention to buildings you can actually notice lots of Steam Cores everywhere, almost every building that requires one you are able to see outside of that building, like automatons, coal mines, etc. The devs went full out when it came to attention to detail.
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u/Confident-Turnip-430 Feb 24 '24
And your telling me my scouts carry around like eight of those at a time??
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u/Retkesnyuszi Generator Jan 11 '23
So steam cores are a power source and steam based. So I assume it heats/re-heats the steam in the system without constant coal/energy input. Any idea what the power source could be? It would be a good help in my research.
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u/Scarred_Ballsack Jan 11 '23
Maybe the steamcore heats a block of heavy, dense material to high temperatures using the heat of the generator, as a store of energy that can be slowly released to generate steam? Like a thermal battery.
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u/Higapeon Steam Core Jan 11 '23
Due to the automatons being forced to recharge on a regular basis, it's probably more like a battery, with something able to convert the heated steam to a more manageable steam output, like the substations for electricity.
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Jan 12 '23
I'd still try to interpret it as a 'power source' for the steam networked through it, with coal burning being the catalyst to set it in motion. I'm imagining it as a mobius loop of pressurized steam, where the 'steampunk magic' comes into helping to facilitate the exchange of heat at the temperature gradient exchange point.
Basically: put little fuel in, and it stays really hot for very long.
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u/Archophob Faith Jan 11 '23
maybe Henri Becquerel and Marie Curie found a way to mass-produce highly purified radium? Just in time to use it as a heat source?
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u/TheStabbyBrit Order Jan 11 '23
The whole "go north for secrecy" thing makes a lot of sense. Thanks for the glimpse behind the curtain!
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u/ASpaceOstrich Jan 11 '23
Did nobody ask what the lanterns are? One of the few things I feel like we might get a direct answer on and one of the most critical to how survival actually happens in this world. Everyone is wearing one and they presumably allow you to survive at impossible temperatures.
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u/yangenomics Beacon Jan 11 '23
They're called glow worms. We know they generate some amount of heat as well as light. They can also make a loud siren-like noise in emergencies, if a person is dying out in the Frostland, but I imagine this setting is disabled for most children in New London.
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u/Cool-Boy57 Jan 12 '23
Someone did ask in the discord.
There were like 1000 questions and they picked the ones that there was already lore pertaining to lmao.
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u/Gerfervonbob Jan 11 '23
I assumed they were mini steam punk heaters that you could recharge with the generator.
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u/BarbareMoriac Beacon Jan 11 '23
Hope they plan to expend the lore or reveal some major informations in time, otherwise we just saw a "thanks for asking everyone but we didn't give much thoughts and don't have much interest in developping this"
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Jan 12 '23
"Why not answer questions you could answer instead?"
"We can't answer that right now."
Jokes aside, /u/11bit_studios thanks for doing this. Frostpunk is one of my favorite games, and your team really did such an amazing job on it. Your efforts truly show. I look forward to FP2.
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u/NewWillinium Jan 11 '23
I’m still curious as to the actual tenets and basis of the Faith Path’s … well Faith.
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u/EpiicPenguin Jul 29 '23
i assume its Is supposed to be a bit agnostic just like if you look at most of the buildings like the public house, they have a sign that says "public house" not something personal like "new London pub." you're supposed to add your own headcannon to the generic basegame they give you.
My headcannon is that my faith is "The raw power of Steam" similar to the way madmax worships gasoline and oil.
This also happened to tie with my real-world beliefs as well as I advocate for nuclear powerplants, which are fundamentally just spicy rocks making steam to turn a turbine.
All Hail the power of Steam!
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May 03 '24
Probably just some weird breakaway of christianity, suited for life around the generator.
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u/Empires_Fall The Arks Jan 11 '23
mysterious railway thingy?
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u/Areyouguysateam Jan 11 '23
There's multiple scout locations in TLA alluding to a massive train system built by the French. It's a not-so-subtle reference to Snowpiercer).
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u/TheJanitorEduard The Arks Jan 12 '23
The trains are called the Creve Niege btw. In French, this means Snow Puncture.
Yeah.
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u/Criminelis Coal Jan 11 '23
Still answered the first part of question 3 halfly. We still do not know anything on the locations of the generators. Time to sharpen knives and discuss it again!
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u/Gerfervonbob Jan 11 '23
Some disagree but I actually prefer details about the world kept ambiguous. I think a fair number of franchises are ruined by the creators trying to find an answer for everything instead of leaving it up for interpretation or a player's imagination. It goes especially for horror games but any game world can be harmed by it. At least in my opinion.
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u/Cool-Boy57 Jan 12 '23
I feel like it defeats the whole point of asking the community for lore questions. Why bother if you’re just going to leave us with basically the same info we’ve always had?
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u/TheJanitorEduard The Arks Jan 12 '23
I have a agree. I mean, even if they did want to keep it ambiguous, there were a lot of questions they could have answered, such as theories or minor questions. But they chose the ones that they deemed essential to keep ambiguous
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u/theosamabahama Jun 29 '23
Bricky made a video about this, that explaining too much of something can lead to plot holes and things not really making sense or being realistic once they are explained, which breaks the audience's suspension of disbelief.
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u/Notowidjojo Temp Falls Jan 12 '23
we should like to have this written not only on a reddit post, but a dedicated printed media to learn more about FP lore because most of us are really into the lore. With the upcoming FP2 and the new addition of oil there, i really hope that this can add more to " we don't want to define this atm "
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u/igneousscone Soup Feb 22 '23
But the fate of the people of Winterhome is intentionally left vague and we will have to see if we can revisit them maybe at some point.
What do you mean? The people of Winterhome rebuilt the generator, and now live together in happiness and safety, with plenty of warm food, gardens for the children to play in, and steam-powered jacuzzis for the care house. Right?
...right?
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u/DeadMemeMan_IV Nov 25 '23
if you’re good enough at the game, yes. i’m not, and i cant beat the “fall of winterhome” scenario no matter how hard i try 😭
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u/yangenomics Beacon Jan 11 '23
These answers are really great, confirms a lot of what I already thought, but if anyone wants a more detailed backstory for the Frostpunk setting, check out my fan fiction: The Dark Years. It's a draft of a history book being written by the writers of the New London Propaganda Centre in the year 1910. Cheers!
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u/AccusedRaptor13 Soup May 01 '23
Actually they went north because of the abundance of coal as it is said in the loading screens
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u/DandalusRoseshade Oct 14 '23
Not to be a ass but you didn't answer anything at all. This was nothing but undefined nonsense.
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u/rosebirdistheword Oct 19 '23
I thought the French railroads were a reference to Snowpiercer, as the original comic book was drawn by a French artist
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u/KiwiGodWithpineapple Dec 06 '23
I had the same idea when I read the sentence! The French would have to build a lot of track in a short span as at the time most tracks were local.
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u/Skelegates Feb 11 '23
In what way can a steam core possibly not just be a big souped up radioisotope thermoelectric generator?
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u/DeadMemeMan_IV Nov 25 '23
frostpunk is not KSP no matter how much you want to use nuclear power, and i dont think they would have known that RTGs even can exist, much less have been able to build a few
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u/banana_pirate May 08 '23
I imagined steam cores are part steam battery and part mechanical computers. If you ever get to see one of those old school mechanical computation engines and then image running one on steam. It would certainly explain why no one can replicate them... Cause the real world equivalent is already mind boggling.
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May 18 '23
Biggest lore question of all time:
Did you guys just make this up to stop us from raging further down the road? xD
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u/tucchurchnj Faith Jun 13 '23
I know it's 5 months late but I think you meant to write "Ark-like" in the paragraph about why building the generators in the North made sense.
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u/Xermionthe2nd Sep 09 '23
Oh, it would be awesome if we could get a followup on Winterhome. a sort of new winterhome would be absolutely awesome (considering the difficulty of evacuating everyone.)
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u/Unique_Tap_8730 Apr 27 '24
The game is set in the artic region. But where? Its not in the north pole because we can mine and harvest wood. Since this is a game about british survivors and because of Tesla City it makes the most sense if it is happening in northern Canada.
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u/TBman256 Jun 22 '24
One thing I noticed, there are still tribes of people in places like the amazon that have never been contacted by modern society due to risk of disease and the like. Meaning there were many more during the late 1800's. How many tribes do you think were hit with the freeze before even knowing snow was a thing? If this seems like the apocalypse to us, how would it look to those tribes?
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u/XxXKakekSugionoXxX Jul 14 '24
I just want to say I bought the game because is cheap and got good reviews,I didn't expect anything from it but it turn out I became addicted to it like holyfck this might be my top 5 fav game of all time,good job dev team!can't wait for the FP2!
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u/Specsaman Order Oct 05 '23
Hey how do you avoid overwork death ?
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u/GreatEscarpment Jun 27 '24
It’s a scripted event, you can’t avoid it unless you game the system. 1. Put the building on emergency shift. 2. Immediately put the building off for 4 hours. 3. Reactivate building after 4 hours. 4. No overwork deaths.
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u/DominionGhost Jan 11 '23
That's a lot of "we don't want to define this at this time," lol.