When is the Frostpunk 1886 release date? Frostpunk 2 may have taken the spotlight, but 11 bit hasn’t forgotten about the 2018 original. In fact, the studio is rebuilding the entire game from the bottom up.
Like 11 bit’s breakthrough survival game This War of Mine, the first Frostpunk was built using the proprietary Liquid Engine. Seven years later, however, and Liquid is no longer being updated, improved, or developed – 11 bit says it needs a new platform to keep its strategy hit feeling fresh. Enter Frostpunk 1886. This is the original game, rebuilt in Unreal Engine 5, but with plenty of new gameplay bells and whistles. To learn more, read on.
Frostpunk 1886 release date window
The Frostpunk 1886 release window is currently set for 2027, as confirmed by developer 11 bit in the ‘New Game Announcement’ trailer.
Frostpunk 1886 was initially teased in April 2025 by Przemysław Marszał, 11 bit’s president of the management board, in an investors press release.
“As a developer and publisher, we intend to diversify both the scale of our projects and their development timelines,” Marszał says. “This also means capitalising on near-term, financially attractive opportunities. This underlies our decision to initiate production on the next project set in the Frostpunk universe, which we plan to launch as early as 2027.”
At the end of April, the Frostpunk 1886 announcement trailer arrived, revealing that this mystery project would be the remade original.
Frostpunk 1886 has been in development since the beginning of 2025. 11 bit says that, after it is released, Frostpunk 1886 will evolve in parallel to Frostpunk 2. Whether this means that 1886 will be updated at the same clip as the sequel remains to be seen, but 11 bit also promises more information on the project in the near future. You can wishlist the game on Steam here.
Frostpunk 1886 gameplay
Though we have yet to see any substantial Frostpunk 1886 gameplay out in the wild, we have been given a very brief glimpse of the work currently being undertaken in the new engine via April 2025’s Dev Commentary.
What’s more, 11 bit has already shared details of what we can expect. Frostpunk 1886 is more than just a visual upgrade. It’s an expanded version of the strategy game, promising “new content, new mechanics, new events, technologies, and buildings,” alongside a completely new Purpose path.
11 Bit also says the move to UE5 will open up mod support and the potential for post-launch content like DLCs.
And that’s everything we know about the Frostpunk 1886 release date right now. In the meantime, check out more of the upcoming PC games you’ll be able to bridge the gap with. Alternatively, try some of the best city-building games you can play right now, or maybe the best apocalypse games on PC.
Original article by Ed Smith.
