There’s no material prize for getting relics, bar a short passage of text and an image, hinting at an old steampunk world of automatons, balloon-piloting hunters, and temperatures that actually used the top end of the thermometer.
I say I “had to” find these I don’t mean it. I had find 15 of these in order to fill my Archives, and sent scouts hopping from empty cave, to ruined shelter, to supply cache, on the lookout for the rusted-out hulks of dreadnoughts in order to dig them out.
The Endless update also added Archives, a new building designed to house relics left over from the old world, before it got all colded up. Outside of unnecessary construction projects, I spent my time sending scouts out to dig up old treasures.
That’s what they say about being a totalitarian dictator: you’ve got to make your own fun. It didn’t make a jot of difference to productivity or survival, but it looked nicer, and every self-professed deity needs a hobby. I knocked down houses that had started as tents, letting people go homeless for a night as I put up new digs in concentric rings around my town, interspersing them with clinics and cookhouses at regular intervals.
Where I’d once built for necessity, placing buildings for warmth - closest to the central generator - or for access to resources, I started building for aesthetics. There are only a handful of decorative buildings, and those that were included in the update - streetlamps, public squares, and gardens - don’t stand out much against the intricate steampunk Victoriana of the game’s other structures. Serenity setting in Endless Mode is tagged as being “for constructors,” and that’s true, as long as you like your city creation more in the realm of civil engineering than creative landscaping. Some people disagree with that assessment, but I’m the one who’s keeping them warm and fed in minus-90 conditions, and if they still fail to see sense, well - that’s what the steamy-pipey-execution thingy in my town square is for. The former is easy: it’s just a case of moving further down Frostpunk’s “Faith” tech tree, enacting law after law that codifies first the worship of a divine, before standing up and outing myself as the divine in question. There’s only one thing for it: it’s time for me to declare myself a divine ruler and boil alive anyone who questions my rule, and write my name in unnecessary and expensive lights. It’s also, after months of peace and prosperity, quite boring. It makes Frostpunk’s icy armageddon more of a backdrop than a breaking point, the thick carpet of snow lending the already Victorian proceedings a Christmassy air. Serenity mode dials back the challenges inherent in the game’s regular campaign, providing increased resources and pre-researching vital technologies to give players a leg up, allowing them to focus on building the perfect city to survive the turbo-Arctic. Things are going so well that I can even splurge on a few gardens: steam-fed public spaces that serve little purpose other than prettying up the place. Discontent flares up, as it’s likely to do in a post-apocalyptic icebox, but it’s smooshed back down again by easy access to fresh food and warmth. Storms still roll in, but my insulated houses and network of well-stocked steam heaters make them little more than extra-snow snow days for my workers, who can just penguin-waddle their way to their jobs in cosy coal mines and thoroughly heated hospitals. But playing on the game’s new Endless Mode’s “Serenity” variant, I’ve finally got the time, space, and resources I never had before to build a city designed for more than just survival. Typically by this point in 11-Bit Studios’ icebound strategy game, I’ve lost half my populace to sickness and the other half are so ravaged by frostbite that I can split a pack of socks between six families. For the first time in Frostpunk, things aren’t looking so bleak. My people are fed, my homes are warm, my resources are abundant, and my generator is purring like a well-fed cat. Update Night is a fortnightly column in which Rich McCormick revisits games to find out whether they've been changed for better or worse.