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This article is about the city of Winterhome. For the Frostpunk scenario, see The Fall of Winterhome. |
Ruined City of Winterhome
"To all scientists: If you use any supplies, remember to notify the quartermaster upon your return to the City."
- Note posted on the Door of the Sturdy Shelter
"London: 1934 Miles, Home: 27 Miles."
- A Signpost near the Sturdy Shelter
"God, forgive us, we’re eating our dead. There’s no hope."
- The Last Entry of a Winterhome Survivor
The City of Winterhome is a major location in Frostpunk and Frostpunk 2 as well as the playable location of the Frostpunk scenario The Fall of Winterhome.
Searching for Others, Winterhome[ | ]
Before Arrival: There can be no doubt - it's a city much like ours. We can see the top of the Generator, but it's switched off, perhaps for maintenance.
During Arrival: We climbed up to the edge of the city. We stood there speechless, staring at the scene of devastation. It's a city of the dead. Most of the buildings are destroyed and the Generator has exploded.
The fall of Winterhome: The streets of the ruined city are littered with scores of dead bodies. The city chronicle describes the shortage of food and citizens' increasing despair, the following squabbles, riots and descent into anarchy, fights for dwindling resources, and the eventual starvation... The last entry: "God forgive us, we're eating our dead. There's no hope."
After Arrival: N/A
Background[ | ]
Burning Ruins of Winterhome
Winterhome was once a settlement of survivors that managed to endure the Great Frost, not unlike New London. Starting out as one of Britain's long-term research outposts controlled by the military (it was also the headquarters of all research and scientific expeditions within the frost land), by the time of the Fall of London, the newly-minted "Winterhome" had developed into a small city. It was expected by most of the residents to be very advanced and thus capable of providing assistance to its new neighbor, the generator and would-be settlement designated as "New London." In its heyday, Winterhome had access to some advanced technologies and a lot of manpower and resources, which allowed them to construct automatons, an outpost, and an observatory, as well as a steel bridge over a deep, wide ravine.
A New Home[ | ]
Unfortunately, by the time New London was able to raise its Beacon and send a scouting team, the city had become a frozen ghost town, its generator damaged beyond repair, its people dead in the frost, and only a lone automaton maintaining the steel bridge leading to the dead city.
If the Beacon is not created and Scouts reaching Winterhome within 15 days after New London's founding, then an alternate scene occurs where a lone, dying man will reach the new settlement and reveal Winterhome's grim fate in his last breath, setting in motion the events that follow regardless.
Word of the dead city, what was thought to be one of the best hopes for humanity's survival, sends ripples through New London, notably forcing the Captain to take stricter actions in order to stabilize his people and regain control of his own city, as Winterhome's demise also prompts several people to band together in a seemingly in-vain expedition to return to Old London out of fear of New London sharing the same fate. These Londoners may steadily gain traction, amassing more out of the city's population to join them in their slim hope of survival, and it is up to New London's Captain to choose how to reunite the city's fractured heart.
The Fall of Winterhome[ | ]
The city's backstory is revealed in the scenario aptly titled "The Fall of Winterhome": the ultimate demise of Winterhome is revealed to have been caused by the chronic failure of its generator - the result of either rushed construction, substandard materials, poor workmanship, or a combination of all three. Despite its origins as a military research outpost, it is apparent that significant immigration has occurred due to the large presence of children. This undoubtedly put a heavy strain on resources, particularly food and housing.
It is perhaps from these pressures that the first Captain (likely as a military officer) resorted to a brutal, authoritarian rule to maintain order. The harsh rule combined with possible mismanagement induced great resentment of the leadership; the first major generator malfunction appears to have been the final straw that united the dissenters into a full-blown rebellion, resulting in a city-wide civil war.
The victorious rebels install the player character as the new Captain and demand they restore the city, by now mostly a smoldering ruin. In the ensuing battle, the Old Captain and his soldiers were gunned down and piled into the city's mass grave, stacked on top of one another as far away from the citizens' bodies as possible.
It appears that the news about Old London's destruction and the arrival of massive amounts of refugees caused major strife within the city of Winterhome; a riot broke out over food shortages and increasingly harsh rule by an army captain before their generator exploded from lack of oversight. Many of them either perished from that explosion, fell in the resulting chaos, or scattered across the region in camps. Few survivors that were spared by the destruction of Winterhome were found and saved by scouts from the nearby settlement of New London.
The Last Autumn and On The Edge[ | ]
In the scenario The Last Autumn, Foragers can find a pile of lost crates north of Generator Site 113 containing 10 Steel Composites and 20 Steam Exchangers. They have the option of taking them for themselves, or leaving them for their rightful owners. Further north of the crates is a convoy of trucks slated for the site of Winterhome, looking for their lost cargo. They can either be ignored or informed of the location of their lost supplies.
Presumably, the canonical decision was for the Foragers to take the supplies and ignored the convoy's requests, as this indicated the builders of the Winterhome generator were forced to make the sub-standard substitutions that would ultimately doom the city. Taking the parts will award the Achievement "It Was Me All Along," further suggesting that Site 113's decision to take the resources resulted in Winterhome's generator failure.
In the scenario On The Edge, set after A New Home, the ruins of Winterhome can be visited again, and are almost completely buried by ice and snow.
Frostpunk 2[ | ]
"The Winterhome expedition has arrived to the cursed city." - Scout Report
Following the death of the Captain, an expedition under the order of the Steward is sent to Winterhome with its ultimate fate determining the future of New London. There are those who would plunder the ruins of Winterhome for the Cores located within it in order to turn New London into an oasis of warmth within the Frostlands, while others seek build upon them to revive Winterhome as place for New Londers to settle and live.
The Fate of Winterhome following the arrival of the New London Expedition
