Frostpunk is a city-building survival video game in which you take the role of a leader in an alternative history of the 9th century. The world has been plunged into a volcanic winter, the player is required to manage resources, assign work, and make tough decisions all so that the people survive the cold. The game is centered around the engine, the large steam engine, that emits heat in a circular radius and requires the player to build the city around it to maximize the usage of the heat, often times you will have to make decisions that leave your citizens unhappy, for the greater good. Frostpunk has many elements that can be further analyzed in many different ways and with the use of many different theories, yet Frostpunk may be best analyzed through the lens of Marxist theory. Marxist literary theory looks at text through a lens focused on social class, the assu
mptions surrounding social class, and the power relations involved in society. Connecting Frostpunk with Marxist criticism seems like a match made in heaven, as Marxist theory is used to help readers to see the role that class plays in the plot of a text. All of these decisions result in the player feeling bad about their choices and forces them to realize that not everyone is going to survive the endless winter. Since Frostpunk involves a lot of utilizing citizens based on class in order to ensure survival, the game-play opens a lot of questions to explore various class systems of Frostpunk through Marxist criticism. Frostpunk is a game that clearly is influenced by Marxism, this paper seeks to examine to what extent it is connected by looking at the mechanics and social classes within the game, with a particular interest towards how the game makes the player feel.