Frostpunk 3 could launch "as early as 2027", with an untitled "larger-scale" 11 bit game planned for 2029

"The next project set in the Frostpunk universe" is even now in production, developers 11 bit have revealed in their latest annual financial results. Whether it be known as Frostpunk 3, Fro3tpunk, Frostpunk: Revengeance, or some other variation of Frostpunkage, it could launch "as early as 2027". 11 bit have also begun development of a "larger-scale title", which they're hoping to release in 2029.

The financial results paint a mixed picture of 11 bit's fortunes in 2024 - hence the decision to bejazzle the investors with talk of another Frostpunk game. On the one hand, 11 bit have experienced "the highest sales in the company's history", driven by Frostpunk 2's release and legacy sales of Frostpunk and This War Of Mine. On the other, there hasn't been a "corresponding increase" in profit margins, mostly thanks to the cancellation of Project 8, a third-person fantasy adventure with a theme of working through grief.

11 bit have also seen some disappointments in their publishing division: historical RPG The Thaumaturge and Pied Piper sim Creatures of Ava have "failed to resonate with gamers", though the experimental satire Indika has apparently done rather well.

Frostpunk 2's initially strong showing, meanwhile, has been blunted by mixed player reviews. "We hope that upcoming DLCs, including new gameplay features, will improve the ratings Frostpunk 2 has received from players," CEO Przemysław Marszał comments in the release. (Our own Frostpunk 2 review summed it up as "an atmospheric, bold attempt to reinvent its own society-moulding subgenre whose story and building features too often frustrate with too few options or distract with too many.")

11 bit have some larger hunks of coal in the boiler this year. On the publishing front, there's Moonlighter 2: The Endless Vault, "a sequel to the company's most successful third-party title to date", in which you must farm dungeons for goodies to flog in your village store. There's Death Howl, which some oaf who can't be arsed to think of a new description once described as "a sorrowing open world deckbuilder set in the Nordic Stone Ages". As for in-house games: 11 bit's big bet this year is The Alters, in which one man and his many clones must collaborate to operate a rolling spacebase.

It's a while away, but: hopes for the next Frostpunk? At the risk of getting myself thrown off a glacier by the faithful, I wonder if it might be time for a change of genre. Perhaps a party-based RPG, like Wartales, with players scouring the icelocked crannies of New London for firewood.