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This War of Mine dev shows Frostpunk gameplay in screenshots

Child labour?!

Up until now we haven't seen what Frostpunk, the new survive-the-frozen-end-of-the-world city builder by Polish developer 11 bit Studios (This War of Mine), will be like to actually play. But new screenshots from E3 have given us our clearest look yet.

The screenshots show a user-interface and with it the mechanics of the game. Of particular significance appears to be red Discontent and blue Hope sliding scales. There are objectives of the same colour; presumably fulfilling these affects the scales, tipping them one way or the other. Is it game over if your Discontent bar fills? I doubt it's a good sign.

We also see the screen where you get to pass laws for your city. The Sustain Life law pictured has the description, "We can't cure the gravely ill but we can at least keep them alive. We will not experiment on our sick," which sounds grizzly.

We see, too, the ramifications of enabling child labour: injured children. The temptation to have them work will no doubt be high.

Frostpunk is a much bigger production than This War of Mine and will keep you playing for longer. It's due out later this year on PC and there are no plans for console release yet.

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